So, with that terribly useful “anything could happen” verdict on Australia, that’s the end of my live blogging from Vienna! But fear not – I’ll be here throughout the next week with predictions, betting tips and suchlike, and more importantly, Felix will be live-blogging the dress rehearsals to give you a different voice and perspective on proceedings. Which is surely better than me having desperately to search for something new to say about Leonor Andrade.

In the meantime, it’s time to go and have some coffee and cake in a seriously touristy corner of Vienna before tonight’s big opening night at EuroClub. The dancefloor closes at 4am. My bus to Bratislava Airport is at 6am. Forget tomorrow, we can do tonight again… as long as there’s enough Red Bull to keep me going. Cheers!

AUSTRALIA
And now the kind of thing that should be the UK entry.

But really, the contrast can’t be ignored. Here’s an actual singer commanding the stage, flanked by actual backing singers/dancers who have a sense of rhythm and their own bodies. It’s a brutally professional performance. Possibly a little too slick and calculated, and there’s something about Guy’s look – hat, blue suit jacket and tie – that’s not quite in keeping with the “let’s have a party” lyrics, but these are minor quibbles.

Staging-wise, we’re moving along a night-time street with angled street lights. It’s a little busy but I think it’s fairly effective.

Guy’s only half-singing several of these run-throughs, which reminds me of Carola in Athens and the “OMG she’s lost her voice!” fanboy meltdown. It’s almost like he’s an experienced pro who’s been doing this kind of thing for a while. Indeed, so comfortable is he that on the second run-through, he rolls his eyes and gives a “blah, blah, blah” look to the crowd instead of attempting the final note. I like him.

That said, the very-much-just-a-rehearsal nature of the performance makes it hard to know how much more engaged and engaging Guy will seem on the night. Assuming he is, that should overcome some of the “distance” that I’m feeling between him and us right now. He’s totally the kind of performer who’ll bounce off a crazy live audience and get an extra buzz from that, too.

Of course, the key question is: Can Australia actually win Eurovision, or will this be their one and only appearance in the contest? (Assuming you believe that those are the only two options, of course…) Instinctively I would say no – this is more the kind of effective “complete package” of a mainstream pop song that, if it were from any other country, would do its business and land in, I don’t know, the 4th-9th neck of the woods – but precisely because it has the novelty factor of being from Australia, I reckon frankly anything could happen.

image copyright: Elena Volotova (EBU)

FRANCE
By god, France will be hoping the producers put them straight after the UK in the running order if at all possible, because this is a comparison that benefits them greatly. In isolation it really isn’t that good, but the press centre is desperate for something to cling on to right now, and they’re loving this.

In fairness, the staging for this is pretty effective. We’d seen a preview of the backdrop already, and indeed it’s the destroyed village described in the song’s lyrics, plagued by stormy weather and lightning flashes before being magically reconstructed as a tree-lined boulevard in the last few seconds. (Yes, more trees! Never mind #BuildingBridges, the hashtag for this year should be #PlantingSaplings.)

Lisa looks elegant enough in dusky blue. She’s a plain-looking performer who delivers the song unpretentiously, but that’s something they’re turning into a virtue here. From the “je suis ici ce soir” line onwards, she’s joined by four drummers in white, accompanied by a whole load of identical drummers on the video wall. This requires some wide shots that detract from the drama of the crescendo a little, but I think it’s a sacrifice worth making.

They’ve been playing with the level of the backing vocals during the run-throughs so far – they were too loud at first, now they’re blended a bit more subtly. What isn’t subtle is the way Lisa growls the “que” of “que l’on connaissait pas”, which is a bit off-putting. But broadly speaking, this is a strong delivery of a song with a strong last minute, even if it takes a while to get there – and they’re doing their best to hold the viewer’s interest in the meantime.

image copyright: Elena Volotova (EBU)

UNITED KINGDOM
Remember when Tahiti somehow qualified for the Confederations Cup and had to attempt to play football against the likes of reigning world champions Spain? That’s essentially the BBC’s approach to the Eurovision Song Contest. Electro Velvet are part-timers who’ve been sent into competition with the big boys, they’re trying their best and will enjoy every minor success they achieve along the way, but ultimately they’re totally out of their depth – and I’m afraid it shows.

A long delay preceded the first UK run-through, which may have been to do with the huge sound and light packs that are awkwardly attached to Bianca’s back – we presume they’ll sort that out in time for the big show! Or maybe it was the steps they’ve brought with them in an attempt to recreate the music video, which look more like children’s slides than the architecture of the Café De Paris.

The performance starts with a clunky “d-d-d-dance!” and some Denmark 1992-esque interaction between the girls and the boys, then we get the Bianca and Alex show in much the way we’ve seen it before. The four dancers (two girls, two boys) give us some moves that are meant to evoke the Charleston but come across more like “5th place in A Song For Europe 1983”.

If we’re looking for positives, the electro instrumental bit before the second verse and the scatting section are filmed in blue so that the neon elements of the team’s costumes can shine and sparkle, and there’s a nice revolving overhead shot towards the end of the song. But nothing can distract from the whiff of amateurism that permeates the whole thing – they’re lovely people, but Bianca and Alex are having to try so hard just to achieve basic competence that there’s no room left for them to show any personality or energy.

I mean, really, fucking hell. To cut a long story short, this looks and sounds exactly like what British people who don’t watch Eurovision think Eurovision is. And when it comes last or near-last, those same people will complain that “it’s all political anyway”. I hate being British sometimes.

image copyright: Elena Volotova (EBU)

GERMANY
From the ridiculous to the mundane as Ann Sophie takes the stage. It would be foolish to stage this with capes and waistcoated dancers, obviously, but this is almost an anti-performance by comparison – calm, composed and keenly focused on delivering the song and nothing else.

Quite an effective stage set-up, with five big lamps near the back of the stage, facing forward, and the backdrop showing – you guessed it – wisps of black smoke on a white background.

Ann Sophie has reeled in the shoutiness a bit, though she still sounds overly aggressive during the last 30 seconds of the song. Otherwise, though, she’s quite elegant and sassy and in control of the performance, finding the cameras nicely and giving us some almost slightly flirty eye contact. Meanwhile, the backing vocals get their moment in the sun with a “too hard to say three words” interlude before the final chorus, which adds some variety.

I really think this is coming across quite nicely. It’s quite an average song, but it also has a freshness and a normality about it that might be useful when the voting rolls around. Over on the Prinz blog earlier this week, I said that I thought the bandwidth of potential results for Germany ranged from “Roman Lob” to “Elaiza” – not higher than that, but not lower either – and I’m sticking with that.

image copyright: Elena Volotova (EBU)

SPAIN
In the biggest surprise of the week so far, the Spanish fans in the press centre are very enthusiastic about this.

No tiger, but the staging is entertainingly ridiculous anyway. Edurne starts in a long, glittery red cape with a (Little Red Riding) hood. The cape gets dragged and draped over her not-quite-shirtless-but-open-waistcoasted backing dancer as she stands up. There’s a moment before the first chorus where she grabs the cape and you’re quite sure that the Inevitable Croatian Strip is about to happen, but instead she keeps it on until the second verse, wherein the backing dancer plays with the material for no particularly good reason. Then the Inevitable Croatian Strip happens, and the dancer dashes off stage with the cape (a move that’s accidentally caught on camera during one of the run-throughs – oops!) and removes his own waistcoat out of shot.

He then returns to indulge in some Torvill & Dean ice dance moves with Edurne during the middle section (she can actually properly dance, as it turns out – it’s a nice interlude) before she’s left alone for the ending. Phew. And there’s probably a dozen things I haven’t picked up on during these first two runs, but if I tried to cover it all I’d probably wear my blogging fingers to the bone.

Edurne is singing adequately if not brilliantly, but that’s enough for what they’re doing here, really. The fact that there’s a song beneath this visual mishmash is the very least important thing about the Spanish entry.

Also, I know “the stage looks gorgeous” tends to be blogger shorthand for “there’s nothing else to write about”, but it really does. There are lots of interesting ideas going on here and the colour palette is different to anything else we’ve seen all week, and I legitimately think that could help Spain to stand out a bit.

Oh man, this is a stupid, stupid three minutes, but it’s fun stupid. And ESC 2015 desperately needs that. Bravo!

image copyright: Elena Volotova (EBU)

AUSTRIA

An easier one to blog, this, since the Makemakes pretty much stand/sit there and do their stuff (surprise!). Behatted Lead Singer Makemake is kept in semi-darkness until the first chorus, and indeed there isn’t much showbiz lighting here generally; instead, we get a black, white and blue stage and bucketloads of #authenticity.

There’s a lovely overhead shot of the fiery-red stage floor during the middle section – it’s so striking that it’s made me actually notice that the song has a middle section.

Bass Player Makemake is wearing a 1970s white suit that, if we’re being generous, perfectly complements his 1970s hair.

Behatted Lead Singer Makemake gets up from his piano for the last chorus and moves to the front of the stage, though he doesn’t look entirely comfortable doing so. Daniela Simons he ain’t.

Erm! No wonder he leaves his piano, since the whole damn thing is SET ON FIRE for the last run-through. Like, not just a wee pyro, but a proper, marshmallow-toasting-worthy camp fire, right in the middle of the thing. Hands up who had the Makemakes in the “act most likely to use a ridiculous gimmick” stakes?!

Fire notwithstanding, this is absolutely everything you’d want from a home entry, really. Respectable, well performed, and not a hope of burdening ORF’s budget with another hosting job next year.

image copyright: Elena Volotova (EBU)

ITALY
I never come to a conclusion after the first run-through, tempting though it is to immediately jump on a bandwagon when you’re stuck in the press centre with nothing better to do. But the alarm bells were ringing right from the start with Italy, and little has changed in the intervening half-hour to convince me otherwise.

There’s no point in judging Il Volo’s vocals this early in the morning, although even at 50% you get the impression things aren’t blending quite as smoothly as they ought to. What we can say is that there are some strange vocal choices in places – one of the boys hangs on to the middle “amore” for longer than the others, for example, and that’s happened each time so far, so it’s presumably deliberate.

Anyway, more important is what’s happening on camera, and that’s where I think the problem lies here. The visuals are generally overblown anyway, with lion’s heads and statues on the backdrop in a homage to the ESC 1991 stage, and the boys struggle to impose themselves on it as the cameras swoop and sway around them. There’s a nice section in the middle where they each address the camera in turn, but other than that, they seem to be playing to the arena rather than the folks at home – indeed, Red Glasses feels like he’s actively scared of making eye contact every time we see him. They look gormless and awkward where they should be commanding the stage, more like the nephews of the Three Tenors making their first-ever stage appearance than an experienced live act, and I’m actively baffled by the positive response this is getting from the fan-press around me every time.

Now don’t get me wrong here, I’m not saying that this is an Amaury-style fan fave balloon-burster – we’re in the territory of “oh, this might come lower top 10 rather than upper top 10” – but the delegation are going to have to sit down and have a proper look at what needs to be improved here. Hold fire on your lay bets until the second run-throughs on Wednesday, but keep your guns charged just in case.

image copyright: Elena Volotova (EBU)

Introduction
Morning everybody! It’s my last day in the press centre before I jet off on holiday and leave you in the capable hands of Felix for the week ahead – but what a day it promises to be, with two of the bookmakers’ favourites (Italy and Australia) and the other members of what we’re calling the “big 7” giving us their first rehearsals. We’re back to Monday-Thursday rules – nobody’s allowed inside the arena – so us bloggers will do our best to describe the action for you. Stay tuned to this very page!