No Qualms With Qami

May 7, 2018 by Rob

The serious business starts today with the semi 1 jury performance this evening. Artists will need to bring their a-game more than ever in what is a fiercely competitive heat.

This is a chance to see the semi-final as you will see it tomorrow night. A few observations: People can vote via the Eurovision app but not in the UK (I am reliably informed). Official rules state you can vote up to 20 times but not sure what the cap is on the app vote.

Sennek improved. Backing vocalists too strong in the sound mix for Mikolas. A break after Lithuania. Aisel is interviewed. She plays a tune on a toy piano. Eugent has a brief chat.

Start of Israel song slightly awkward with looper replacement vocals. Probably nit-picking. Belarus receives a wtf? reaction from someone sat next to me seeing it for the first time.

Zhana’s look and vocal for Bulgaria remain problematic. FYR Macedonia’s Marija is magically transported from the edge of the stage to the centre at song start. This was not a good run for FYR M.

Break after Croatia – Franka as excellent as always by the way. Back in green room, Mikolas is interviewed. Alekseev gets a brief chat too.

Cesar is a bit off vocally and some of his movements look ungainly. Greek lighting and dry ice effect the most impactful it has been. Yianna needs to improve her vocals later this evening too.

Saara as in-your-face as ever. Sevak seems to be peaking at the right time. The Swiss have tried their utmost but ‘Stones’ still feels a long 3 minutes to me. Ireland is a sweet little ditty, to be sure, but this is seriously hot company.

Eleni doing her grocery shopping in the postcard. Great catwalk strut at song start. Her hips move like they are on springs. This is Sasha JB’s triumph of 2018.

Zhana has a tongue stud and she features prominently on the Bulgarian recap. Cesar’s Messianic pose features. Greece’s Yianna not sounding her best on the Greek recap. Saara doing her shouty bits in the Finnish recap. I think these recaps can be changed yet.

Wonderful medley involving last year’s artists performing Salvador’s winning song. Second recap has different segments of songs in some instances including Austria and Greece – Greece better sounding on 2nd recap clip.

During a Eurovision board game between two of the female hosts, past French and Greek songs are referenced. Interview with Claudia and Isaura. Claudia plays the ukelele. She plays the Eurovision intro music on it.

Spain’s Almaia and Alfred interviewed. They ‘la-la-la’ their song together. SuRie has a chat. They will play clips of the three songs after each of these segments, it looks like. Not sure if they will be seen in their entirety or not but we are seeing the postcards for Portugal, Spain and the UK. Seems like more coverage of the Big 5 plus hosts Portugal here than they usually receive.

Claudia in a black dress, Isaura also in black. A good look for them. Younger ballgown for Amaia, trainers for Alfred giving off a more youthful, casual vibe. Also better.

Overall, the sense ahead of tonight’s performances is, this is a fiendishly trappy semi-final and there could easily be high profile casualties tomorrow evening.