Rehearsals: Day 1: Part 2 Latvia - Romania

Unfortunately due to my usual Sunday routine I was not in a position to stay in live mode for the afternoon. Anyhow here's how the rehearsals look to be going for the first half of the the first semi-final.

Latvia - Rehearsal Video
Those who have followed the blog will know that this is far from one of my favourite entries. Anmary's vocal performance today is really, really good but I don't like the display behind her. I think it lacks a strong colour. This is as close to my lovely horse as you can get and I suspect that it will stay this way. Anmary still is a very strange performer onstage too. This needed something really special to stand out onstage and it has not delivered on this. I cannot see this qualifying.

Albania - Rehearsal Video
Without a doubt I am really delighted by how well this is working onstage. Vocally this is just outstanding. The only issue that could be a problem is that Rona needs to make far more contact with the camera for this song to really score well on the public televote, but otherwise it has been a great performance. The extra drum towards the end should lift it and make it a little more anthemic. This does mean though that sound mixing will need to be very, very good for this all to work. Media reaction to this song has been equally positive but no one seems to be predicting this as either a qualifier or not.

Romania - Rehearsal Video
Romania has impressed me today. I found this a bit boring up until now but the extra bass in the song is excellent. If it doesn't come across on TV this will flop. Up until now I have felt that it is just a bit soft. But no, instead it is more like something from a club which I would listen to. This is well listened to and liked by the press and people seem to have a soft spot for this. Vocal concerns were also knocked today with a strong showing from the lead singer. After the first five songs this really should stand out to the televoters.

Beautiful Song, Dire Lyrics: Latvia - The Review.

Because of the earliness of their National Final Latvia actually generated quite a lot of interest in their song. After two semi-finals in January and a final in Feburary Latvia decided to send Anmary to Eurovision with her song “Beautiful Song”. The song tells of a singer who wants to write a song that will be a big hit and everyone knows it and hums it.

Really this is a shocking song. I didn’t expect this to win the national, and when it did, it was more disappointing than surprising. The song is fairly unremarkable, with a fair melody, but the lyrics are just dire. “I was born in a distant 1980, the year the Irish Johnny Logan won”. Does she really think that this lyric actually has anything to do with the rest of the song? Does she think that Irish people are so gullible to vote for a song just because it mentions Johnny Logan? The answer to both is that she is sadly, very mistaken. I think the lyrics of this song were best described by Ewan Spence over on the ESCInsight Podcast this is as close to My Lovely Horse as we’re going to get.

So if there is so much wrong with it why not just declare that I cannot stand it and put an NG at the bottom. Well, the truth is while I am not alone in saying that this is a pretty awful song there are many fans of this out there. This differentiates it from songs like Montenegro or Georgia while are practically fan-less [if you are a fan do leave a comment below]. Latvia has been praised in some quarters of fandom for sending a great song, while I completely disagree with most things these people say; it’s got a great melody etc. The song might have a great melody, but that’s all that going for it.

Latvia are in the first semi-final which is a rather entertaining one so I really think that it could struggle, especially in the face of very polished performances such as Ireland. I’m not convinced that the juries will give it enough support to bring it through to the final either.

Verdict: This is a really poor entry from Latvia regardless of what the fans might say. Personally I really dislike this song but I don’t hate it so I will pass the song with some qualifications [that’s what and E grade means, for your information.]

Grade: E-

The Next Four Eurovision Songs

 My, that was a busy day. This is my reaction piece to the finals that were held today. The reaction piece to the semi-finals is here. So here we have the four songs that were selected today:

At no earlier than 13:00 GMT Ukraine selected their entry sung by Tina Turner impressionist  Gaitana with song "Be My Guest" it is rather good too.

Next up is Croatia Nina Badric, with the song Nebo - I am unsure about this song but suspect this could be one of the weaker songs from the Balkans this year. (I wonder is she still off sex too).

Then Latvia delivered a disappointment of a result by sending Anmary with the song "Beautiful Song".

And finally late in the day, Italy came out with an excellent song by Nina Zilli. She was selected with the song Per Sempre. However it is not known if this is her song for Baku. I would love to see it in ESC.