Alma Knack

May 7, 2017 by Tim Booth

A shorter day today ahead of the official Opening of Eurovision 2017 this evening with the Red Carpet event.

O’Torbald kick us off with their brand of rock, which is unpalatable to many in the bubble over here in Kiev. There were no noticeable changes from Friday’s first rehearsal. Ukraine is my favourite of the automatic qualifiers, and some of my new Eastern European friends agreed with me when I told them this.

Italy’s Francesco is sounding very rough today, but it’s not about his vocals apparently. Try telling that to Dami Im and Jamala, who smashed the jury vote with their impressive vocal capacity and staging concepts. He’s still clowning around with his gorilla and there’s nothing new to see here. Italy drew first half at the end of its press conference today.

Manel is now wearing a slightly different Hawaiian shirt to his buddies, which identifies him as the frontman. Camera angles have been tightened up, but it’s very questionable as to whether this is good enough to muster up some televote points from Portugal. It at least stands out in the field and now has a second half draw.

Germany’s Levina has a hairstyle reminiscent of P!nk. It’s still pretty much as dull as it was before, and she is all alone in the middle of the stage. Sometimes it’s wrong before it’s right, and pyros were added to the final run through to make ‘Perfect Life’ a slightly more interesting watch. Germany joins Spain in the second half of the final.

The UK’s staging takes a long time to set up, and was delayed in starting, so we are speculating whether Lucie might be positioned after an ad break on Saturday night. There’s an annoying shot where a mic stand obstructs her face at the beginning. She’s trying a new dress which is a brighter shade of gold and she nails the delivery each time. Her arm tattoo on display is something I wish we didn’t see, but that’s only a very minor criticism. After drawing second half, plenty of people are now speculating that the UK could finish in the Top 10, although I’m not one of them.

France doesn’t compare very favourably to the UK, which is odd as you might expect France to beat the UK in terms of song quality alone. Alma is putting a little bit more into it now, so this is definitely an improvement on what we saw on Friday. The staging concept is still a bit of a fail though and they should really consider hiring a new team for next year. Like most of the others today, France also drew second half.

It’s down to business tomorrow afternoon with the first full run through of semi-final 1, before the acts perform in front of the juries in the evening.