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Spain

Spain first rehearsal

Desiree on Fri, 05/05/2017 - 14:42

Manel Navarro is still keeping the summer vibe in his performance. It looks a lot better than in the national final but a lot of work still needs to be done on the camera shots.
Manel has a band with him now so the stage looks nicely filled with 2 guitarists and drummer (who's also a backing vocal) joining them on stage. Whether the vocals have improved from earlier iperformances is hard to judge as the sound is unfortunately very low at the moment.

On the third run the amera work already seems to be improving. What I still notice though, is that on close ups half of Manel is very dark. I wonder if that is deliberately or an issue to be solved later.

For what it is, I think it's looking ok but the song is still the same, which means a lot of repetition of the title. With no matter what staging, I doubt this is going anywhere near the upper areas of the scoreboard.

Germany Second Rehearsal: Ann Sophie - Black Smoke

Up next is Ann Sophie and Germany. Once again, there aren't that many changes from sunday's performance.

Ann Sophie's still singing the first verse of the song, with her back to the audience, although she is glancing over her shoulder a lot more now.

She's a very confident and consistent singer, Ann Sophie. The whole staging really works, it has something very James Bond like about it.

Yes I like this a lot!

Spain- First Rehearsal

CostasP on Sun, 05/17/2015 - 10:38

There are too many things going on stage for the Spanish performance. Amanecer wears a hood attached to her red dress at the beginning of the song with the train of the dress covering the shirtless dancer. Later on the dancer pulls the dress to reveal a new silver one ; then she moves around on stage making hand movements. There's also dancing with the dancer and at some point she pushes him to fall on the floor.... Amanecer isn't the strongest singer, especially in comparison to some great vocals this year. I'm afraid this isn't well thought and comes across as weird despite some nice moments. There were a quite a few laughs in the press centre during the performance and cheering (hopefully for all the wrong reasons) at the end of it.

Spain as seen by Keith

SPAIN
What’s the Spanish for complete and utter fiasco? I suppose when you have as song that is so dull and monotonous you have to throw the kitchen sink at the staging but this is just completely over the top and has sent the Press Centre into complete hysterics of laughter. Edurne starts by sitting centre stage with what looks like a sequined beach towel over her head and once the camera pans out you see that she’s actually sitting on her backing dancer. There is then a ridiculous amount of playing with the long red shawl before the backing dancer pulls it off to reveal the terrific golden dress and fabulous boots which are Edurne’s main performance costume. There’s a nice rustic theme to the backdrop and there’s a lot of gymnastics- come- dancing and it just looks awfully awkward and totally contrived. Some really messy camera angles which will obviously be gone by next Saturday night. But at the end of the three minutes the OTT nature of the performance means you have no recollection of the song. This could end up in the bottom five with an early draw.

Spain First Rehearsal: Edurne - Amanecer

Gosh Spain, where to start...

Let's say Spain have really gone all out on their entry this year. Edurne's visual presentation for Amanecer is very different from what Spain has done before, but there's a lot going on.

Joined by dancer Giuseppe di Bella, the choreography was done by Miryam Benedited and features a glittery cape, a dress change, a windmachine, lifts, and a variety on backdrops.

It's visually a spectacle which could go two ways. It either goes really in Spain's favour or it will go completely against it. I think the main issue Spain is facing is making sure that everything flows rather nicely together.

The second run was definitely an improvement already. Vocally Edurne is strong and she carries her song right through.

Not a bad start Spain, just work a little on the visuals.

Austria - First rehearsal

Here's the host of the Eurovision Contest on stage. I really like the song, the lyrics. It's relaxing; it feels as if time stops for these three minutes.
The singers are dressed according to 1970's fashion (clothes, hairstyle and mustache) and I don't really like it. One is playing the grand piano, the other one acoustic bass and the third on - the drums. Generally, I have good impressions from the performance. The only thing I don't like is their image; it's kind of a dissonance for me.