Serb-al Remedy

May 4, 2016 by Rob

A first chance to see how the semi 2 contenders are shaping up with Latvia’s Justs kicking things off and he has wisely chosen a black leather jacket.

Quite minimalist staging for this, with excellent lighting and stage floor visuals. ‘But all the battles are in wain’. Justs poor pronunciation of this word is something of a pet hate.

Some nice moments with roving close-ups incorporated. It’s a very clean, professional presentation and Justs sounding ‘on point’ as hackneyed mentors say on UK reality singing shows.

Michal is wearing a silver jacket that looks like it is made of baking foil. He hammers out this power ballad well. Now he has ditched the bakofoil and wears a black wife-beater on 2nd run through.

Three female violinists, a pianist and a cellist join him up there. His diction isn’t the best. Not sure what look he is trying to achieve with his poodle rock long hair and that vest. It adds to the very dated look and feel of the song.

Rykka, bless her, has decided to dye her hair a purple/blue colour. Vocally she is a little off in places. All we see is her up there and there is smoke rising off her back at song start. Strange outfit. Transparent skirt over black leotard. She is barefoot.

With that hair she reminds me of the labradoodle I have to look after sometimes. She gets the pyro curtain towards the end. That aside SVT has made things tough for Switzerland with this r.o. position.

Israel’s Hovi is in fine voice. This is really nicely staged. Beautiful lighting. A starry feel to it, understandably. Feels intimate. There are some acrobats spinning around in a ring behind him. There is a sense of well-executed simplicity here.

A high-tech hot mess might be a concise way to describe Belarus. Visual effects getting annoying now and still only halfway through first half of semi 2. We get the video segment of a naked Ivan howling with a wolf. He then appears on stage and has holographic wolves surround him.

A holographic Ivan appears playing drums. Thanks Mans Zelmerlow for ruining Eurovision basically. Ivan struggles with the high notes and a baby randomly appears beside him at the end and there are other visual motifs used as well but I was too busy attaching a noose to the light fitting above my seat. I dread to think how much money Belarus wasted coming up with this. Next…

Sanja is a sublime live vocalist. Ballet guy comes charging in and paws away at her and she pushes him away. He then tries it on with one of her female backing singers. In between he does some acrobatic contempory dance. I suppose he is playing the role of the abusive husband/partner here, Sanja and her female friends are trying to ward off.

This is a dark subject matter (similar to Hungary 2 years ago) and it tells the story of the song well. Her four backing vocalists join her in the last minute and power out the climax.

Ireland has gone with red as the predominant staging colour at song start which changes to black towards the end. XF aficionados will take note of that. Nicky has good backing vocal support when they come in. Unassisted, his vocal is very thin.

Drummer, keyboard player, guitarist, 2 backing vocalists. Nicky bounds out to the satellite stage towards the finish. It’s a nice finish but it’s all rather static prior to that and it’s a shame they have the wrong colour scheme for this song throughout with no sense of ‘Sunlight’ whatsoever.

Kaliopi her usual accomplished self, front and centre. Four backing vocalists and a drummer join her but Kaliopi is the star here. This is all highly competent.

It’s really a question of whether Kaliopi’s Balkan voting power will be enough for her to sneak through in this semi. Her trademark screech at the end of this is the only negative. Superfluous and enough to make any nearby dogs run for cover. This is apparently her signature note and will remain.

There is a shot to the audience we think will reveal who ‘Dona’ is when she performs this a week tomorrow, according to a FYR Macedonia source, possibly her mother, so maybe room for a sentimental televote there.

Donny, who famously had a blindfold in Baku, has brought a trampoline to Stockholm. If you recall he gave us a one-handed cartwheel at ESC 2012; must assume he is going to do a big forward somersault next week.

This is looking quite polished already and very similar to the Lithuanian NF in execution. This chancer is clearly in love with himself and has a face not dissimilar to Ronaldo in the punchability stakes. The lighting does help this sparkle though, much more so than Ireland earlier.

Dami is seated on a glittery pedestal looking a bit like a mermaid at song start. She is wearing a very strange shimmering silver dress.

Visual effects in front of her which are trying to convey communication presumably but like a good few others this week it looks like visual effects just for the sake of it.

She gets off her pedestal and walks forward towards the end and gets some good close ups. She has changed this up and trys to freestyle to give it more oomph but Dami’s vocal is far from note perfect when she does this. Her overall look is maybe a bit alienating. The market is not impressed as Australia drifts.