The Grand Final of the 63rd Eurovision Song Contest will take place on May 12th at the Altice Arena of Lisbon, Portugal. Forty-three 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 2018. Over the next week, 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, nine countries will rehearse for the first time.
⭕ LIVE COVERAGE | Live coverage has ended
11:00 CET – Norway – Alexander Rybak – That’s How You Write A Song
10:35 CET – Join us shortly as our live coverage
11:02 CET – We’re just waiting for Norway to begin their first rehearsal, the screen is just showing a Portuguese tourism advert.
11:14 CET – Norway have their on screen graphics, it looks very similar to MGP. We’ve yet to see a full performance.
11:23 CET – Same lighting and colours as the performance at MGP. The opening features Rybak sitting down and interacting with the on screen graphics. He is joined by backing dancers and singers for the instrumental, he then removes his jacket and throws it in to the final.
Shots in to the audience of them clapping along. Violin makes an appearance on the second instrumental. The performance is pretty much identical to MGP. It is a really good opening for the semi-final and a bundle of fun.
11:32 – The on screen projections work really well for Norway, they’re not trying to replicate real life, but to add some fun cartoon styling to the performance. Pyro at the 2 minute mark and on the close. A very charming performance.
11:40 CET – Romania – The Humans – Goodbye
11:43 CET – We’re just waiting for the first run through.
11:48 CET – Starts with a dancer in all white removing a white masks, they go to the lead singer and backing singers. They’re surrounded by mannequin with masks on. Cristina is wearing a purple shoulder pad, dress combo.
There is a drummer and a piano, plus a person on a cello. The manikins looks really odd on stage, the mannequins are incredibly distracting. Vocally there is nothing wrong with the song, visually it just looks confusing and messy.
12:00 CET – Piano is in the music for the opening and you see the piano in the first shot but there is no one sat at it. There are a total of 20 mannequin on five different platforms that the lead singer walks between. Interestingly only one of the manikins is white, the rest are completely black.
12:10 CET – Third run through there is someone sat at the piano. The dancing from the two guitarists isn’t very natural, they look visibly uncomfortable. Romania looks to be a borderline qualifier at best and currently sit as the 12th favourite to qualify for the final.
12:11 CET – Cristina was expecting a wind machine for the third run through however it wasn’t activated.
12:20 CET – Serbia – Sanja Ilic & Balkanika – Nova Deca
12:24 CET – The three female singers are wearing lilac dress. The performance opens with the old man on the flute, focus on the three backing singers. On the right of the stage there is a guy with four drums. At 52 seconds in the song gets going with the male singer.
The staging really suits the song and feels authentically Balkan. There’s a spot between 1:20 and 1:45 where it’s all a bit empty and they need to do something to better fill the time. Danica and the male vocalist really are the stars of the performance, with the main focus on them.
They’re not really filling the stage, it’s a better performance than the national final but it still needs some work.
13:38 CET – The blue lighting for the performance doesn’t really work for me. There needs to be more use of some darker colours or reds and yellows.
12:50 CET – San Marino – Jessika & Jenifer – Who We Are
13:02 CET – They’ve got four robots, three of the four are dancing along. One of the robot has a sign sayijh “I’m not your robot”. Jenfier starts in a cloak, which is taken off by two dancers. Jessika is wearing a hoodie, jeans and top. Jenifer is wearing a pink blazer and lack trousers.
One of the robots is proposing to someone with another sign. Jessika then interacts with a robot and they dance together. Ends with Jessika and Jenifer making a heart with their hands.
13:15 CET – A very solid performance from San Marino, it’s what you want from the song.
13:24 CET – Jessika and Jenifer are however lacking any real interaction until the end of the song.
13:30 CET – Fourth run through for San Marino, there’s no changes in their performance.
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 11:00 CET this morning, with Alexander Rybak from Norway. Live blogs will keep you up to date with all of the rehearsals, the staging and the first impressions from Lisbon.
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.
To get the most out of our coverage of this year’s contest in Portugal, 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.
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- Checkout snippets of the goings on in Lisbon and more unique content on Twitter by following Eurovoix Moments
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