The second day of rehearsals came and went, and I am sad to report it did not bring fluffy pastel clouds with it. It did, however, serve to display the creative ability of stage designers across Europe to come up with giant props to stand in for the otherwise fairly non-existent stage design, which I suppose is exactly what one can expect from the Eurovision Staging Contest.

After experiencing day 1 in relative peace, today I had to deal not only with the brain effort of remembering Croatia, but also with having to get work done – and in the most creepiest of Eurovision destiny moments, I turned my chair around in a middle of a fascinating discussion about the Israeli entry and Japanese cats only to find this pair staring at me. They’re now living at my desk for the duration of the next two weeks, judging the competition from up close.

Not quite the calm after the storm

11. Macedonia
Due to some undisclosed technical difficulties, Macedonia only had one run-through. While most delegations get in three or four run-throughs for one song, managing just one for thre songs definitely puts Macedonia in a disadvantageous position. In addition, that is, to the inherently disadvantageous position of being Macedonia in the first place and therefore yet to prove you are capable of staging anything effectively, never mind something with a complex structure like this song. We might not have a lot to go on here, but if the little we did see tells us anything about their staging concept, then 2018 is probably not going to be the year in which they prove anything we didn’t already know.

The Balkan girls, they like to party like nobody (Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

12. Croatia
A ballad. A blue backdrop that sometimes sprinkles red thingies. A black dress. I can’t handle this common framework of creativity. For what it’s worth, it’s a very pretty black dress, and Franka is very pretty in general, and from what I can tell she sings this prettily enough, and unlike me the juries will have papers in front of them on which they will have to write stuff down and therefore they might actually remember the existence of this entry by the end of the night.

Through lights and shadows (Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

13. Austria
It’s time for today’s first entry in the “we brought our own stage with us” competition, in which Austria places a stage inside a stage so it can use exactly the same light palette as the rest of the stage. OK then. To be fair, I always thought that a red/black/white combination is rather effective, but you know what’s less effective? A mini-stage mechanism that doesn’t work as it should, making the singer jump off it and only partly hiding the backing singers, to the point where you can’t figure out whether the failure is the fact that they’re hidden or the fact that they’re shown. Also unhelpful: dark clothes. On a dark stage. Have you people learned nothing from Giorgos Alkaios and his friends? You all had months to review the witness accounts from 2010. Research, people!

Undo my sad (Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

14. Greece
Speaking of people who learned from Giorgos Alkaios, Yianna Terzi is in all white and, in a very daring move that no one has thought of before at Eurovision, she has a blue background. In her defense, if anyone is allowed a white-on-blue presentation it’s Greece. They probably invented it anyway. They certainly invented drama, and this historical element is evident in the selection of poses Yianna strikes during the bridge, right out of the Ivi Adamou choreography textbook. The historical embodiment of the spirit of Greece is completed by spirits of ancient Hellenic goddesses floating through the massive statue depicting the skeletal ribs of Venus and surrounding Yianna with magical backing vocals that come from the earth and the sea and the sky and my pastel clouds I am yet to see but I know they are there. I can feel their presence, just like I can feel the presence of Yianna’s backing singers. And no, Lisbon, smoke machines do not count as a fluffy cloud substitute. They do work quite well for this, though, so that’s something.

When spirits are calling my name (Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

15. Finland
Still no pastel fluffy clouds, but Finland has definitely taken a step in the right direction by bringing a pink spaceship and a launchpad. That’s one small step for my personal journey of finding color in this year’s stagings, one giant leap away from this entry making any sort of sense on stage for the humanity watching it. First of all, Saara, aliens are not monsters. That’s just offensive and alienist and I don’t understand why we should use Eurovision, which is supposed to bring us together, to cause a diplomatic rift between us and our extraterrestrial friends. Secondly, I love you, Saara, I really do, and I love your song too, but you have successfully accomplished in executing my biggest Eurovision pet peeve: “it’s Eurovision! Let’s bring a prop! And lights! And be really really tacky! And do all kind of moves! Next person who asks me what the concept actually is gets fired! Of course there’s a concept! ‘Eurovision Staging Mistakes 101’ is the concept, isn’t it obvious?”

Hello from Mars (Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

16. Armenia
Armenia’s version of a stage takeover includes their very own stone circle. Turns out that there’s a place in Armenia called Zorats Karer which touristic guidebooks call the Armenian Stonehenge, so at least I learned something today. Things I didn’t learn in this rehearsal: Why is there a stone circle on stage? Is that the landing site of Saara’s aliens? Why is it black? Why is the stage black? And why does he wear black? And why, when the lights change, is it only to blue and red? Wait, that’s rhetorical, I forgot where I was for a second. Scrap that.

Three minutes to Earth (Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

17. Switzerland
It’s blue. And red. Because this entry obviously wasn’t anonymous enough as it is, they had to flesh it out a bit more. I was wondering as I was watching it – it’s really easy to wonder about other things when Switzerland is on – whether this influx of red and blue will make delegations try to switch colors up to something slightly more risky, or at least less black, red and blue. If so, Switzerland probably won’t be on that list, because I just realized all their fashion accessories are red and it probably took a lot of effort to come up with the color scheme for the entire act and shop accordingly. She sounds great though, if only I could remember what she was singing.

I wanted to use the name of a Danish song the staging reminded me of, but couldn’t remember what it was. I decided it was fitting to keep it this way (Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

18. Ireland
City of stars
Are you shining just for me?
City of stars
There’s so much that I can’t see
Who knows?
Is this the start of something wonderful and new?
Or one more dream that I cannot make true?

Alex Swings Oscar Sings (Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

19. Cyprus
Poor Cyprus, they always have to take the Greek leftovers. The Greeks went ahead and took water, earth and air, left them with fire and Foureira, and told them to figure it out for themselves. And that they did. As top graduates from the Samra school of vocals, Foureira is effectively covered vocally at all times – although it would probably be helpful if she could manage to actually hold the microphone in front of her throughout the full words she is supposed to be singing, because even with the 40 seconds we got here, it seems like the Greek spirits have infiltrated this and are finishing Foureira’s sentences for her. You would think that after a decade of miming she’d be better at it. Oh, well, no one’s perfect. Do you know what she’s really good at, though? Dancing, and looking really really hot. In your face, Venus. Or ribs, whatever.

You’re a fire and desire (Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

And that brings the first round of semi 1 rehearsals to a close. Which means tomorrow we will see if anyone in the first half of the second semi-final knows how to stage a song, especially considering we already know most of them don’t know how to write one.