First semifinal. First dress rehearsal.

I assume you've heard everything already but in case if you're staying by our blog and completely ignoring others, here comes a very brief recap of what we've seen on stage today. Mind that we are not judging entries and their chances by amounts of cheer in the audience crown, cause I find it rather dull.

First semifinal kicks off with a little fairytale made around some cheesy story about nomadic people who learned how to fly that ends with Tolmachevy sisters descending from the very top of the venue on some enlighted structure that appears to be a magical firebird from the logo. Then hosts appear to tell us some forseeable words. Natalia Vodianova is, without any doubt, a beautiful person but she seems either too shy or easily frightened for a host. Andrey Malakhov seems to be much better then we all expected him to be, both performers' English is far from being perfect but still understandable. Unfortunately, Andrei and Natasha just don't have any chemistry, they look way too differently.

I won't speak about each entry separately, instead of it I will underline some obvious changes.

Belarus looked pretty powerful, vocally good and, surprisingly, understandable as opposed to all other Belarusian entries to date. So with some obvious support it can make it to finals.
Sweden proved my idea that Malena won't reveal all her vocal abilities at the initial rehearsals and today we saw her in a full power.
Turkey flashed in with loads of fireworks and fireblasts to march right into the finals. There's nothing that can leave Turkey in semifinals - everything works for Hadise well.

The interval act will be definately a point of attention this night: in started with Aleksandrov (formerly Red Army) Choir performing some a-la Russe songs like Katjusha, Kalinka and so on with various "ethnic" artists dancing, jumping and beating drums around them. This ethnic horror was saved by t.A.T.u. who joined all the folk on stage and started to preform "Not Gonna Get Us" supported by every single artist who was on stage. It looked really fabulous and unique, so don't miss it tomorrow - you will be greatly amused.

So if I still maintain some prediction abilities, these are going to...

... definately qualify: TURKEY, ICELAND
... most likely qualify: BOSNIA, ISRAEL, SWITZERLAND, ARMENIA, BELARUS, MALTA
... definately flop: CZECH REP, BULGARIA, REP of MACEDONIA, MONTENEGRO
... either fail or succeed (with descenting chances to qualify): PORTUGAL, SWEDEN, ANDORRA, ROMANIA, FINLAND, BELGIUM