ROTTERDAM CALLING MAY 12 🇳🇱 Live blog: North Macedonia, Ireland, Cyprus, Norway, Croatia second rehearsal

This live blog post closes now. The remaining videos and more updates come in the third daily live blog post in this link.

• Elena says that the second rehearsal was better than the first one and she is happy. Everybody is safe this time. Tiny details need to be worked out. The energy was amazing.
• The choreographer says that she is satisfied with the dance act today.
• Elena says she was practising and rehearsing since January.
• The Cypriot team explains that the song is influenced by Lady Gaga’s song as one of the composers has worked for the pop queen and they think it was natural (to copy her song, we add)
• Elena says that singing in English is natural for her (although we laugh with her pronunciation) and in French.
• Her boyfriend’s advice (singer Mike) told her to have fun while participating in this venture and feel natural.

UKRAINE WILL NOT REHEARSE
“The lead singer of Ukraine’s band Go_A, Kateryna Pavlenko, reported feeling a little unwell this morning. In accordance with the health and safety protocol, she has undergone a PCR test for COVID-19 and, as a precautionary measure, Kateryna will miss this afternoon’s rehearsal and press conference. We wish her good health and will share more information when we have the results of the test. The other members of Go_A have all tested negative for COVID-19 and will perform with a stand-in singer. They will also attend Ukraine’s press conference later as scheduled.”

Time for a short break but don’t go away. Cyprus’ press conference is coming in five minutes and we will report about it.

It seems there is a huge delay due to careful work on the videos from today’s rehearsals which are based on what we will see on screens. Patience!

Albina is next on stage and gives once again a very good 80s performance with the colours and the camera work totally adjusted to her presentation. This year we see many artists been in the middle having aside to them two and two dancers. This is the recipe for Croatia but doesn’t;t seem annoying. Not sure if we can call it a qualifier but it’s definitely a radio hit.

• Lesley understands some are confused by the stage presence and she explains that the props are used to guide us to her inner trip, aiming to the final destination.
• Lesley talks about the two dancers who are moving the props and frames and at the end, they join her on the choreography.
• It needs to make few final details to adjust the presentation into a perfect performance and adjust this small paper wall.
• Lesley is saying she works on improving her vocals in the upcoming days and also she and the team to fix and improve the presentation.

Better the devil you know, I must say, this is why now seeing Norway, especially after the mediocre EL DIABLO, TIX delivers a so much to-the-point performance. Vocally TIX is amazing and his MGP staging looks satisfactory. This definitely a radio hit and definitely we will see him in the final. One more run for TIX and it is clear he is ready to perform live.

Vasil will be releasing a dance version of Here I Stand on Instagram shortly

In a few minutes, TIX will take the stage…

One more rehearsal for Elena and her dancers with the same dark and red presentation. Nothing really changed rather than better vocal performance.

Elena Tagrinou came on stage. Despite a promised surprise, we saw nothing new in this performance. The overall rehearsal ran smoothly but I am extremely annoyed by Elena’s voice. Either she couldn’t sing properly or I just don’t like her voice (the latter is more probable). Somehow it gets repetitive and this Tamta-Foureira combination in the performance and the looks of the singer, offer nothing new to me, to the contest and actually to you, the viewers. Will it qualify? Yes, but I wouldn’t bet any money on it!

After a second smooth run for Ireland, on their own staging taste that is, time to get ready for Cyprus

One more time for Lesley. If you ignore your taste of what you see, the outcome is ready to be performed live.

Lesley is no on stage and gives one more performance. The props and the frames are in place, but somehow no one will like the smoothness and the transitions. She has a great song, vocally she is perfect but the stage presentation (although based on a great idea with totally minimal colours) is not working. Actually, I am sad because Lesley could thrive with that song! I watched all the camera work from the monitor and I hope Lesley, whom I met last year for Greece’s #J2USGR won’t hate me, but the entire thing looks wrong…