The Grand Final of the 62nd Eurovision Song Contest will take place on May 13th in the International Exhibition Centre of Kyiv, Ukraine. Forty-two artists will take to the stage over three nights to perform their contributions for the contest, fighting to become the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2017. Over the next few days, all of the artists will have the chance to rehearse on stage and make any last minute changes to their performance before the live broadcasts. Today, the big six countries will rehearse for the first time, these countries are performing in the grand final. The remaining artists from semi-final one will also perform.
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Ukraine: First Rehearsal
14:01 CET // Today, the sixth day of rehearsals for the 62nd edition of the Eurovision Song Contest take place in Kyiv, Ukraine. The host nation, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Germany and Spain are about to take to the stage in Kyiv for the first time. Once France has finished on stage, the team in the arena will break before beginning lighting tests. The presenters have already rehearsed today, so this will be brief. All rehearsals are followed by makeup consultations, a chance to view the performance in the ‘Viewing Room’ to make changes, and a press conference. Press conferences will take place 2h20m after the end of the on-stage rehearsal, lasting twenty minutes. All artists will spend six hours in the building. The first to perform this evening is Ukraine.
14:07 CET // Ukraine’s rehearsal is about to begin on stage, Ukraine the host nation of this year’s contest and therefore qualify directly to the final. O.Torvald are wearing silver, glittery jackets. There are no pyrotechnics on stage but the lighting is powerful. The performance is calmer than it was in the national final, nowhere near as heavy. The giant head is still shown in the background.
LIVE ARENA REACTION:
Ukraine has opted for a much more mellow performance when compared to their national final. They have opted for a slightly more simplistic performance with only the artists, their instruments, and the giant head shown in the leaked stage shots last week.
Rather than opting for a pyro-heavy performance akin to their national final performance, O.Torvald have focussed more on having an intense light show. Vocally, the group managed to hold up for the entire performance. Overall, Ukraine has a memorable, if rather safe performance.
14:29 CET // Ukraine have just finished another performance, very little change – pretty stable.
14:37 CET // On stage now for another run through, not much has changed again. That’s Ukraine pretty much set in stone, unlikely to see any changes before the final.
Italy: First Rehearsal
14:42 CET // The backing performers are wearing bright colours as Italy prepare to start rehearsals. The backing performers are likely to appear visibly on stage.
14:48 CET // After winning the 67th Sanremo Festival, Francesco Gabbani will perform his international smash hit ‘Occidentali’s Karma’ in Kyiv. Inspired by Desmond Morris’ book ‘The Naked Ape’, Francesco’s song mocks Westerners for appropriating Eastern cultures, all the while joined on stage by a dancing monkey. He’s the star of the moment in his country and is the favourite to win in May.
LIVE ARENA REACTION:
“This rehearsal has sealed the deal”, and it’s an “obvious winner”, are the comments coming out of the press centre after the first rehearsal.
14:52 CET // The performance remains very similar to San Remo, the comments in the press room are “obvious winner”, “this has sealed the deal”. After the performance, the press centre erupted with cheers and applause, louder than any other country has received. He stands on stage in a black suit, drowned in bright, colourful lighting. The backing singers shout ‘Ale’, stood in block colour jumpers.
15:07 CET // Very little has changed, a steady cam follows Francesco and the gorilla around the stage at the end of performance, leaving room for pyrotechnic displays which will probably appear in the third run through. The performance is strong.
15:19 CET // Unexpectedly, there were no pyrotechnics in the final run through, nor confetti. The performance remained the same for all three run throughs.
Spain: First Rehearsal
15:25 CET // Manel Navarro will be travelling to Kyiv this year and going straight into the final. The young singer from Catalunya has been performing since his early teens and went on to win a contentious national final to win his spot in Ukraine, regardless will be hoping to be on top form in just a few weeks time. Performing his self-penned song “Do It For Your Lover”.
15:32 CET // Manel’s performance is drowned in purple lighting, a very dull, but pleasant backdrop and not an excessive amount of special effects. The backboard is green with white palm trees. Manel performs with three others on stage.
Germany: First Rehearsal
16:02 CET // Levina starts lying on her back on stage before rising to be stood, barefoot. The staging is very simple, in black white and silver. Once stood, Levina’s performance is slick with strong vocals and good camera work.
16:14 CET // Vocal performance is strong, the staging remains unchanged and the second run through as a whole is almost identical to the first.
16:28 CET // Germany’s third run through has now finished, once again it’s the same with very few if any differences. The press centre is responding well, to what is a very dark, slick and confident performance.
United Kingdom: First Rehearsal
17:33 CET // From the X Factor to the stage and now Europe’s favourite TV Show, Lucie Jones has performed in front of millions. The 26-year-old singer will be performing the song “Never Give Up On You”, written by Eurovision 2013 winner Emmelie de Forest. This is Lucie’s first rehearsal on stage.
17:42 CET // Lucie appears in some kind of acrylic box on stage. The press centre, though mostly made up of British press, erupted after the performance. Great comments from the press centre about the staging, covered in gold. The performance is vocally perfect with no issues.
17:54 CET // The second run through was stopped by Lucie, by choice. Wind machines aid Lucie’s performance, it’s suspected that something may have blown into her, preventing a full performance. The second run through is being restarted.
18:06 CET // Lucie bursts into life on the final chorus as the mirror shell behind her reflects an expression of excitement and power. The performance is confident and after today’s reaction, unlikely to finish in the bottom five. This time, on the third run through, pyrotechnic effects are used.
France: First Rehearsal
18:22 CET // France have taken to the stage for their first rehearsal. The staging is as strong as expected, it puts the focus on Alma and her vocals rather than causing a distraction which is a great asset. The performance is based on city skylines of Paris, while Alma appears alone on stage.
18:22 CET // The stage feels empty, but again this seems a great asset – Alma will stand out from the crowd as she stands alone on stage, without dancers. It appears that she does have hidden performers singing though. France were the last country to perform on stage. Now, all of this year’s 42 participants have appeared on stage at least once to perform.
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About the Eurovision Song Contest 2017
The Eurovision Song Contest 2017 will be the 62nd edition of the contest. It is to take place in the International Exhibition Centre in Kyiv, Ukraine. This is following the Ukrainian victory at the 2016 contest, in which Jamala won with the song “1944”, which was performed in Crimean Tatar and English. This is the second time that the contest will be held in Kyiv, the first being in 2005. The contest will consist of two semi-finals on the 9th and 11th of May, and the Grand Final on 13th May 2017.
[tw-accordion class=””] [tw-accordion-section title=”Eurovision: How the Results Are Generated”] The winner will be selected in part by public voting on the night, and in part by a professional jury the day before. At last year’s contest in Stockholm, a new voting system (similar to that of Melodifestivalen) was introduced in which the televote and jury vote were split in order to create a more tense atmosphere and exciting end to the show. In previous years, the spokespersons from across Europe would reveal their nation’s top ten songs, announced from 1 point up to 7, followed by the famous 8,10 and 12 points. These results were the combined opinion of the voting public and professional jury. Each country’s points would be combined to reach a final result. Now, however, the spokespersons only reveal the top ten of the national jury, leaving the public vote until the end of the show. The public votes are assigned points from 1-8,10 and 12, before being added together to create a ‘pot’ of results. The public vote is now announced collectively awarding anywhere from ‘nil points’ to a maximum of 504 points, a total of 2436 points will be awarded by the public in May, as will 2436 points from the jury. The highest possible score any country could receive is 1008 points, on the basis that every country’s public vote and jury vote awarded the same nation 12 points.[/tw-accordion-section] [/tw-accordion]
How You Can Follow This Year’s Contest
Over the next two weeks we’ll be bringing you live blogs from all of the rehearsals at this year’s contest, kicking off at 09:00 CET this morning, with Robin Bengtsson from Sweden. Live blogs will keep you up to date with all of the rehearsals, the staging and the first impressions from Kyiv.
We’ll bring you up to date news from all of the latest goings on at the contest, expect all the details about the spokespersons, artists and the host city itself.
On May 7 our live commentary of the opening ceremony will return as well, with a number of our writers guiding you through the artists, songs and what to expect from the shows.
This year also sees Eurovoix joining forces with escXtra to bring you XtraVoix. XtraVoix is a daily podcast featuring writers from both sites who couldn’t make it out to Ukraine for the contest, we’ll give you our immediate thoughts on all the goings on.
To get the most out of our coverage of this year’s contest in Ukraine, make sure to follow us on all of our social media platforms. We’ll be running some special contests to win one-off prizes from some of these artists, so you need to pay close attention.
- Like us on Facebook
- Get all of the news straight to you Twitter feed by following Eurovoix
- Check out snippets of the goings on in Kyiv and unique content on Twitter by following Eurovoix Moments
- Who doesn’t love a nice picture? We’ll be posting summaries of the news and ourselves in Kyiv on Instagram
