Following on from yesterday’s in-depth report, the latest news from Lisbon is that the Cursed Staging crisis is still ongoing, but seems to have been isolated to just a few acts in the second semi-final. As it was the turn of 15 delegations from the first semi to return for another round of rehearsals today, the day went without major incidents and in relative calmness, as much as Eurovision fans can ever be calm during rehearsals.

We were also provided with short clips from the television feed, like last year, which allowed for some more serious reflections on the rehearsals (sorry!) even if it still relies on connecting many dots.

1. Azerbaijan
If you needed more proof that Fokas Evangelinos is totally trolling the Greek delegation, look no further. The two rehearsal clips from today say it all.

Step 1: Mute Azerbaijan and press play.
Step 2: Unmute Greece and press play.
Step 3: Watch the Azeri staging while the Greek rehearsal is playing.
Step 4: That’s how you… no, wait

I’ll be your icebreaker when you’re stuck in frozen water (Eurovision.tv / Thomas Hanses)

2. Iceland
You know, I have to hand it to Iceland. I’m sure they know there’s really no one who thinks this song is remotely – hmm – let’s say “not entirely bad”. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that they actually have conversations out loud wondering how exactly they got enough people in Iceland to vote for them, considering the strong possibility that all their votes next Tuesday combined will still be less than what they got in the local televote. And yet, they stand on stage and not only perform a song that is way beyond salvaging professionally, they do it with passion and sincere enthusiasm. While I am not a fan of “Our Choice”, the choice of at least doing it right (well, except the jacket) is something I can get behind.

Love Love Peace Peace {Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

3. Albania
It’s been a while since I’ve been at Eurovision, but I do remember how easy it was to see something there that we cared about and wanted to do well, watching countless performances of it until our personal impression of it was so favorable that it came as a shock when it failed to do anything on the night. Hi, Eugent.

Seeing the press poll from the last few days, Albania looks to be on the highway to wherever all fairly hopeless press favorites go. They have an excellent singer, but everything else about the entry is so nondescript and anonymous, it’d be a wonder if anyone will remember it even happened by the end of the next song, not to mention all 19. The staging is as basic and uninspired as you’d expect from something done entirely by the host production team (not that I know that for sure, but if that’s what the Albanian delegation came up with, they deserve to not qualify just as much as they deserve the same fate for leaving things in someone else’s hands). Blue and red lights flickering and alternating randomly? Check. Band members standing far apart and not interacting? Check. Random camera angles? Check. A ton of long shots and wide shots? Check and check. There’s nothing in there to help anyone who is watching it even pay attention to it, unless there’s some dramatic twist near the end where we discover the entire performance was actually projected onto Elina’s dress.

I Stand (Eurovision.tv / Thomas Hanses)

4. Belgium
It occurred to me today as I was watching the Belgian rehearsal clip that when Sennek performs she actually looks like a comedian who is trying her hand at doing something more serious. And then it hit me: Belgian Laura needs to step in for Latvia – she’d make a much more sensible funny girl – and Latvian Laura should step in for Belgium and Bond Girl the hell out of this performance. As it stands, though, it looks like Belgium’s biggest shot at surviving this semi will also require the help of Elina’s dress. It’s big enough under there. There’s room for everyone.

Alter ego (Eurovision.TV / Anders Putting)

5. Czech Republic
The biggest surprise of the day was that the Czech Republic – despite having to deal with every possible roadblock over the last few days, from Mikolas’ injury through changing choreography to actually even using a stand-in dancer today, not to mention the inherent obstacle of just being the Czech Republic at Eurovision – came across as the most prepared and put-together routine of the day. The camerawork was effective, the overall look of it all was lively and compelling, in stark contrast to pretty much everything around it. I knew you had it in you, Czechia! Marta and Vaclav would be so proud!

Dance you off (Eurovision.tv / Thomas Hanses)

6. Lithuania
The problem of a storytelling type of staging, at least from the perspective of a faraway blogger, is that it’s really hard to see an isolated 45-second clip out of context and have any idea of how well the greater whole works. It’s even harder when the staging is deliberately so intimate that all I can see is an extremely minimalist theater solo performance. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just that I really still don’t know how it all looks like beyond whatever my brain is imagining based on the photos and the blogs. Well, I did say I wanted to be surprised, so I suppose a few mysteries can’t hurt. I can waste all my lines now, what will I write in the semi-final post-mortem?

You and me (Eurovision.tv / Thomas Hanses)

7. Israel
Speaking of the challenges of blogging rehearsals, here are a few:
1. Trying to review the rehearsals of your home entry when it’s also the favorite.
2. Trying to review the rehearsals of your home entry when you have heard and watched the song two thousand times, give or take.
3. Trying to review the rehearsals of your home entry when you have no national final performance to compare it to and only a videoclip to go by, which is visually different from the performance at ESC.
4. Trying to review the rehearsals of your home entry when it’s such a bonkers song that you don’t have any point of reference for ESC comparisons.

So basically: I don’t know. For what it’s worth, it seems like everyone else is in the same boat, non-Israelis included.

What I do know is this: I like it. I like it a lot. But visually it’s also something that makes total sense I’d like, because I like bright colors, and I love that it has a very obvious character. The cats make me laugh, and they did from the beginning, so it’s not a case of “I like it now I got used to it”, I just never thought it was odd or out of place to begin with. I don’t really care she doesn’t use the looper (and I actually love that she plays with its lights, as I’m mentally five years old), because I just like watching her perform. I love Netta’s voice. I love Netta’s expressions. I love how much personality she shows off. It’s clear to me it’s going to be one of those divisive things that some people will love and some people will hate with a burning passion that will eclipse the Cypriot staging. I’m also fairly certain it will have a somewhat of a Salvador effect: love it or hate it, you will not find yourself asking “wait, what was Israel, again?”.

And more than everything, and perhaps this is the bottom line of where I am about my country’s entry this year, I think that bar some absolutely abysmal staging it’s the kind of song that if you were going to like it, you’re going to like it even if Japanese cats aren’t your thing. And conversely, if you don’t like this song, you probably wouldn’t have liked it no matter what the staging was.

Which basically means I just wrote lots of words to say that Israel is where it always was: it’s going to stand out, we just have no clue what people will do with it. So glad I could help.

What’s the pressure? (Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

8. Belarus
I knew it would be hilarious on screen. I even knew the particulars. I still choked on my morning orange juice when I watched the clip. And to think we have two and a half more minutes of this gloriously Eurovision “kitchen sink, entire fitted kitchen and master bathroom” type of performance to experience yet. Wonderful.

Not Ethno-Jazz Band Alekseev – For You (Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

9. Estonia
I finally understood why this performance bugs me so much, apart from the utter lack of a recognizable melody or lyrics here.

It’s impressive, sure. She’s beautiful, no question. But when your entire concept relies on how impressive it looks when you project things onto a dress on that size, you end up spending a lot of the song having wide shots from very far away, and once you get to the idea of it being a dress you might as well be staring at a LED backdrop that has random patterns changing throughout the performance. There’s no story or concept to the projection choices (unless “Look! Pretty thingies!” is the concept, which I suppose it is), so when you spend most of those three minutes watching her dress, a lot of precious opportunities for Elina to at least try and form some connection with the audience is sacrificed just so the dress can be presented in its full glory. They didn’t pay all that projector money just to end up not using the thing half the time, after all!

When we do get to see Elina, again, as strikingly beautiful as she is, she is very much frozen in place, needing to both nail her notes and make sure the entire dress construction stays as is, and thus she conveys very little emotion. I think she is pleased with how pretty her make up is (it is!) but beyond that, no clue. Watching her face, she might as well be singing her grocery shopping list. Actually, maybe she is – it’s not like I can actually tell what she’s singing.

It was easier to balance the gimmick and the performer in the much smaller Eesti Laul set up, but once things moved to a much bigger stage it became clear who the star of this entry is, and it’s not Elina.

Feels like I’m flying, like if I had wings, like I am sailing on a sea of dreams (Eurovision.tv / Thomas Hanses)

10. Bulgaria
You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me.

I always knew this would be a dark sort of thing, and that’s entirely sensible. I also knew that the Bulgarians had managed the impressive feat of collecting five people with the least amounts of charisma, stage presence or likability.

I still didn’t think I’d die laughing watching 40 seconds clip of a rehearsal, considering I know they’re just standing there and singing their song behind it all. Who knew camera shots could contribute to the cult factor of an entry just as much as stage props? That clip is the spirit fingers of Eurovision camerawork right there.

It’s in my bones, got to break the taboo, before we all become animals, animals (Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

11. Macedonia
In my head, I know it will be very hard to convince either juries or viewers at home to go for this cacophony of songs, musical genres, questionable outfits and even more questionable choreography.

In my heart, I hope it will all will miraculously work out on Tuesday and that of course Europe will vote for this en masse, because it might not be the playlist Europe wanted, but it’s the playlist Europe needs.

To the sky (Eurovision.tv / Hanses)

12. Croatia
She looks amazing. The stage actually looks amazing. If we were the kind of ESC website that liberally deploys a certain verb that happens to rhymes with the month we’re in, I’d be using it right now.

Unfortunately for Franka, she is a member of that particularly popular ESC 2018 club for performers who are way better than their songs. Fortunately for her, though, this still falls very much within jury fodder territory, so I might get another chance to not remember her song on Saturday too!

LoveWave (Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

13. Austria
Austria is another candidate for jury preferential treatment, but they really aren’t making it easy for themselves. Static performances aren’t always effective, but Austria dear, wanting to counteract that doesn’t mean you have to send Cesar to compete in a 3000 meters steeplechase race. And if you’re already making him do that, you could at least give him some clothes that are more sensible and practical to wear. Also, I am very impressed by your superior engineering skills and glad to see that you were finally able to show off your own platform structure today, but you know: hidden backing singers are bad enough, but hiding them in the basement? That’s borderline rude.

Speaking of rude, I know it’s not the done thing to interrupt someone when they’re in the middle of a demanding physical workout, but do me a favor: could you ask Cesar to actually look at the camera once in a while? Or, you know, at least in its general direction?

Don’t come easy (Eurovision.tv / Thomas Hanses)

14. Greece
I’m not entirely sure who thought this staging – or rather, lack thereof – is a good idea. In theory, I do understand that we are supposed to feel Yianna’s spiritual connection to her motherland through the voices of the past and future that surround her, and I know that when it comes to spirituality we don’t need to see something to know it’s there. I don’t think it applies to backing singers though.

Yianna, even when she gets the vocals right (and she doesn’t always) is not necessarily the most engaging performer on screen, so having her alone on stage is already a tough ask. But the prominent use of vocals in this song when you don’t see them makes it feel even emptier, and perhaps it would have been easier for Yianna to connect to the audience better if she actually had a setting that allowed her some real interaction. It doesn’t even have to be the Azerbaijan staging – Serbia’s will do, but something, anything.

She does have a blue hand, though. A subliminal message to punters worldwide, obviously.

Hear them calling (Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

15. Finland
Full disclosure: I really like Saara Aalto and I’m entirely familiar with her love for everything that reeks of OTT kitsch. I mostly live with it peacefully because Saara is actually rather good at making a lot of that nonsense work. I also really like “Monsters”, and it’s one of the few songs this year that I’ve actually actively listened to multiple times.

Even with that in mind, I just can’t get on board with this. I can deal with a lot, but my biggest Eurovision pet peeve is using gimmicks, props and staging concepts just for the sake of “it’s Eurovision, so of course we’re supposed to be all tacky and silly”.

The worst thing is it feels like they tried to not make the staging itself too over-the-top, so it’s cliché, but not ridiculous enough for audience to at least enjoy the entertainment value (hi, Belarus!). The entire act screams “ALERT! EUROVISION STEREOTYPES AHEAD!”. And it manages to be so unimaginative it turns itself into a kitchen break, because we’re missing a standard Eurovision filler and it’s very easy to completely miss the fact that this entry actually has a very decent pop song at its heart. In short, it feels like Finland couldn’t decide what direction to take and, even then, wanted to stay on the safe side of whatever they eventually went with.

Fly with me (Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

Today in Lisbon: Many rehearsals and much confusion, as acts from both semi 1 and semi 2 rehearse for the second time and the direct finalists rehearse for the first time.
Later today in San Francisco: I will attempt to not get fired due to having got absolutely nothing done this week.