Denmark

Other than Anja back to wearing the red dress we have already seen her wearing during the national final and the promotour, everything seems to have stayed the same for Denmark. It sounds and looks completely amazing in the hall.

Now I assumed a few days ago that Anja was not yet wearing her costume meant for the semi-final. It appears it was, but will be changed. It is really the only big 'if' for me - the red dress is perfect, what she wore on her first rehearsal looked very strange. It depends on the changes made to her dress (or just keeping this red one) whether it's indeed going for those top spots or not...

The pyro curtain at the end of the song makes it all look even more impressive, but even without it I still think it's going to do very well.

Here's my day 3 review:

The big winners of 1st half 2nd semi for me today were:

- Romania.
This is an easy one. The overall package is much more fun than what we have seen in the Romanian National Final.
What they can improve: More camera focus on Ilinca as Alex takes too much space at the moment.

- Denmark.
Just a superb performer in every run through. I can not believe how well she handles the camera interaction.
What they can improve: Change her outfit so it fits better to the color scheme of the backdrop.

The losers of today:

There weren't any losers today. Serbia did not get a lot of love from the press centre, but it was early morning and I have praised for them for the current and clean look of their staging.

So congratulations to all delegations today! Good job!

Denmark delivers a superb performance with fantastic camera interaction.

It is not the strongest song in the field by any means, but I'm pretty much blown away how well she lifts this song. The performance is much more controlled than it was in DMGP.

My only caveat: The current outfit doesn't match the backdrop. Not the final thing, is it?

No surprises in the Danish rehearsal. Anja's not wearing her dress yet (will she be wearing the same one as during the national finals and promo-parties?), but going full in from the first run. She's alone on stage with hidden backing vocals and once again a golden and blue backdrop. I'm kinda losing track of all the gold this year, gold seems to be the new blue!

The song might be a bit generic but it's very catchy and instant, Anja looks stunning - despite not being in her dress yet - and completely sells it. For the last chorus she drops down to the ground to add some extra drama to it all and the performance is complete with a pyro curtain and wind machine.

Denmark has been struggling for a few years but I don't think this year the question will be whether it's going to the final, rather whether it's top 10, top 5 or higher!

From Mike;

Latvia Yes
Poland Yes
Switzerland No
Israel Yes
Belarus Maybe
Serbia Yes
Ireland Yes
Macedonia Maybe
Lithuania No
Australia Yes
Slovenia No
Bulgaria Yes
Denmark Yes
Ukraine Yes
Norway No
Georgia No
Albania Maybe
Belgium Yes

I am really unsure about Ireland so may swop that with Macedonia or Belarus

From Daniel;

Latvia Yes
Poland Yes
Switzerland No
Israel Yes
Belarus No
Serbia Yes
Ireland Yes
Macedonia No
Lithuania No
Australia Yes
Slovenia Yes
Bulgaria Yes
Denmark No
Ukraine Yes
Norway No
Georgia No
Albania No
Belgium Yes

Daniel is unsure about Albania and Belarus and might swop those with Slovenia and Latvia

Rolling live blog of Jury Show Second semi

Keep Refreshing this page;

Opening;

Views of Globen and crowd shots and COME TOGETHER. Seem like quite a crowd in the area too which is nice.

Now we have lots of Swedish humour and comedy form the hosts, but this washes over me and leaves me very cold I am afraid. All a bit too much MF for my liking.

Both hosts resplendent in silver jacket for Mans and a dress for Petra....all very sparkly. And now we have a duet from the two of them....very smorgasbord like in Malmo

Latvia

Justs creates this emotional monster on stage as he leaps around and gives everything to the performance. For me it is slightly over doing things. Yes he has a great voice but this is not how to perform an Aminata song. That said the backdrop is just perfect for this. Sure fire qualifier but no winner....
Lots of crowd cheering for this though...
The graphics look amazing too

Poland

Michal always hits the spot for me. Simply effective staging for this seems to work. Nothing none of us have not seen on the promo tour or the rehearsal clips so far. He does seem to come to life on stage with his powerful voice and presence. The real issue is that the song is a bit weak both lyrically and musically. He tries his best but given what he has to work with this is not really doing it for me.
Juries should fall in love with this though.....the emotion in his eyes and connection with the camera is one of the highlights this year.
And words on the backdrop are always a no-no in my world, sorry

Switzerland

Sorry but this is going no where fast. No charism, no charm, nothing at all really. Tonight the blue hair is still there and this time it’s curly, but no amount of whacky clothes, designer hair or anything is saving this from being one of the 8 that go home.
3 minutes I will never get back

Israel

Simply perfection from Hovi, great presence, great voice, perfectly suited to this song…the stage really lifts this too, this could really scoop a lot of votes on final night. Yes qualifying and with a good draw on final night who knows?
The earnest emotion that he's given tonight does make me think that Hovi has a lot more to gibe as an artist in the future....and seeing the acrobats on screen for the first time I now get the the inclusion of them on the stage.
Oh and a pyro waterfall.....always love them.....can we have them in every song please?

Belarus

Amazing staging totally distracts from the weak song here, though IVAN does make good use of all the stage and performs the hell out of it. What would have happened if the guy had been given a half decent song to sing? Oh and the baby is still there. Weirdly.
But it's not all about the staging, it's about the song and this is getting totally lost after Israel and before Serbia
Also we have some missed camera angles tonight with his.....but he bring sit back by hitting all those important notes at the end of the song
And he does look amazingly cool on stage

More Eurovision Taxi moments, with some folks that we know.
While this is quite funny the guest appearances from Lordi really give away that this was totally contrived and constructed, which steal the magic for me

Serbia

Great song and great vocal BUT and it’s a small but, the staging is so dark that it loses something for me here. I feel ditched from the performance and slightly distracted by he dancer. But toward the end it starts to lift and when the backing vocalists gather around her it pulls it back a bit for me.
She is giving her all to this tonight though. however like Belarus we do have a few missed camera moments tonight too.

Lighhouse X was very comfortable on stage today. However Martin is still struggling with finding out where to stand, so he doesn't get burned by the pyro. Martin is soon to be in the musical The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He has about 8 weeks to prepare for the role.

The guys talked about how they do a lot of charity work. Each of them has a cause, that is close to their hearts. As they say: "We've all been in a dark place too when we were younger" And of course they also mentioned the big work to get 3 busy calenders in sync for their singing jobs.

Not a fan of Lighthouse X I'm afraid. Second run was much better than the first one, which was stopped three times. The boys are competent singers but the song is just too middle down the road.

The performance here in Stockholm is pretty much the same as the one we saw a few months ago in the national final. Backdrop colour scheme: You guessed it right... Blue and white again... Come on SVT be a bit more adventurous.

I simply can not get excited about Denmark, sorry.

Andy and I spent a nice couple of hours at the Swedish Embassy in Copenhagen, where the Swedish and Danish representatives performed for the press. Also at the Embassy was the Danish Eurovision winner from 2000, Jorgen Olsen. We had a nice chat about the memories from my first time in Stockholm and Globen Arena. How no one expected Denmark to win back then.

Frans performed his Eurovision entry in an acoustic version. After that he sang a cover of "No woman, no cry".

Lighthouse X sang a few songs of their own, but they also did a cover of a Danish song called "Tusind stykker" (Thousand bites). This song has also been covered in Swedish. So it was known to both the Swedish and Danish audience.

After that we have very briefly chatted with lovely Danish singers.

After a glass of Swedish bubbles and a vodka cocktail, it was time to go home to pack the suitcase for Stockholm.