Eurovision 2017 – Day 9 First Dress Rehearsal Semi Final 1 LIVE ROLLING BLOG – START 1500 CET- JUST REFRESH

Just when you thought you had seen the best of us, we are back and better than ever!!  If you were thinking of going anywhere else for your fix of Eurovision rehearsal news, then SHAME ON YOU!!

You can follow our LIVE BLOG HERE – You know the drill by now. Just refresh the page for our live updates. We start at 1500CET. You will be taken care of by Richard. So if you want an honest opinion of how the rehearsals are going then tune in here.   Some other members of the team could be chiming in from time to time.

The Running Order is as Follows

Good afternoon Europe and the rest of the world! After a cultural opening, Monatik Spinning is on stage performing what can only be possibly a local pop hit. As this is a rehearsal, the opening act is been re-performed.

We have our hosts on stage – and they are clearly not in there outfits for tomorrow night. They introduce the fans in the hall, talk about this year’s slogan #CelebrateDiversity, go through the voting and start the show.

Sweden

I can’t go on without saying how sleek a performance Robin puts on here. It proves sometimes you don’t need to change a National Final winner, just for the sake of change. Well done Robin. Top 10 for sure and thank you for transporting me back to Melodifestivalen final weekend.

Georgia

Tamara Gachechiladze certainly performs as if she is in a James Bond movie soundtrack. The power and emotion are exactly in the right places. She has been likened to Adele before, but thinking about it, I don’t truly see that. Got to be careful that Georgia and Albania dont cancel each other out.

Australia

Isaiah has worked really hard over the past week to come on stage today with this finished product. It is now a slick performance and from a technical point, the camerawork issues have well and truly been sorted. Not the strongest entry SBS have sent though.

Albania

Lindita either looks like she is struggling or it is performance acting we have yet to see during the first week of rehearsals. In fact, this is vocally the best we’ve seen Lindita, however the performance is the worse we’ve seen. Not a good sign with the juries tonight.

Belgium

Blanche is now in a black dress. She is also eating the microphone (as my Granny would say), as you can hardly hear what she is singing at times. Blanche sings about the Danger Zone and I’m afraid this is where she will place tomorrow night. There have been so many chances to add performance to this and yet we’ve seen nothing.

Montenegro

Slavko, we love you. As I’ve said previously, it’s bad and it needs to get a lot more worse to be good. It’s getting there Slavko – and lets see you through to Saturday night.

We go to the Hosts for an Eurovision app reminder then a visit to the Green Room.

Finland

This is potentially dangerous for Finland following a commercial break. This is a strong, emotive and powerful performance. This has to be the strongest performance so far following Sweden this afternoon. This will qualify without any difficulty – as long as people come back on time from the commercial break.

Azerbaijan

Dihaj is out of tune this afternoon which doesn’t bode well for this evening and the juries. I’m not a fan of this strange performance and the whole horse head thing – but it’ll qualify no doubt. Those of us that work in the Press Centre get deluded at times, but this performance is a whole new level.

Portugal

Salvador has arrived and had the whole Press Centre in near enough complete silence for three minutes. I can’t wait to get in the hall and watch him live tomorrow night instead of on a screen. If Luisa had us in tears on Saturday, what can Salvador do?

Greece

Nothing new to report from Demy. Because it’s more of an upbeat entry, I fear it won’t get the connection with people like Salvador will achieve minutes before. Still it is one of the stronger entries in this semi final.

Poland

This is a juries song without doubt. For me, the performance is well structured and has a bit of edge, which insight is a strong ballad. I would like to think this will qualify, but not necessarily sure the televoters will grasp it as much.

Moldova

For me this is very much a Sweden. It proves sometimes you don’t need to change a National Final winner, just for the sake of change. And, yet again, this is one of the more stronger entries in this semi final.

Iceland

Again, another strong outing from Svala. She has taken her rehearsals really seriously and it has shown this afternoon. Svala is now on for a qualification.

Green Room/Break

Czech Republic

Personally, I do love this entry, however realistically I will have to submit defeat and except it may not qualify. If it does, it’ll be thanks to the juries. The only reason I think it’ll fail is because so little happens during the performance.

Cyprus

Hovig seems to be out of time with his choreography. Vocally it is spot on. Hopefully this is just nerves with tonights jury voting in the back of his mind. If he sorts everything out, he will qualify without issue. Another final with Greece and Cyprus is on the cards this Saturday.

Armenia

Definitely a good show from Artsvik this afternoon. She certainly has qualification on her mind and I don’t think she needs to worry. This is different and stands out quite well amongst all the other genres we’ve seen this afternoon.

Slovenia

Omar is on his way to the final potentially with this strong performance after failing to qualify 12 years ago here in Kyiv. It is full of impact and is a strong musical theatre based show. This is one of the very few entries this afternoon that would grab the attention of juries and televoters.

Latvia

Although a great closer to the competing songs in this semi final, I find the whole Triana Park performance aimed at the youth market. It could well struggle to qualify as the average televoter or jury member will go for this.

Italy

Francesco is pure gold and has lightened up this Eurovision Song Contest with his charm and character. This really is a winner and what it would be in Italian and not English. Roll on finale night when everyone will be waving their hands and singing along.

Spain

Three minutes of non Saturday night primetime television has just been witnessed. Sorry Spain, but I see no improvement from Friday.

United Kingdom

Lucie Jones has really brought the United Kingdom back into the foreground at the Eurovision Song Contest this year. She is epic in her performance and certainly will never give up on you back in the UK! Surely this is left side of the scoreboard material.

Richard has now scooted off to the Irish party with John so this is Andrew here. Jamala forms part of the interval act while we wait during the voting window. We have now had two run through’s of the snippets of the songs to help the voters decide. The voting is now closed and we get the countdown in Ukranian and English.

Now we have a video of Verka Serduchka and her love of all things Eurovision. Jamala is now back with a new song.

So there we have it folks hope you enjoyed. Tune in again at 21.00 CET for the live blog of the Jury Rehearsal of Semi Final 1 which will be brought to you by Andrew.

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Author: Richard Taylor

Source: Eurovision Ireland

All Photos courtesy of Eurovision.tv

Photo: Thomas Hanses

Photo: Andres Putting