The song performances for the first dress rehearsal of the grand final have now taken place, and journalists and audience members have been given the first glimpse of how Saturday's show will look.

Generally things went very smoothly, bar a couple of glitches, inevitable for the first dress rehearsal. Microphone problems caused problems with the sound in the hall for Turkey, Romania and Finland, which were all sorted during the performance save for Turkey's backing singers, who remained silent to the hall crowd. There were long pauses before Lithuania and Azerbaijan, and there were problems sorting out Jade's staircase prop, with a missing piece being brought on stage at last after a brief wait.

It was the first chance to see some of the styling for the Big Four entries, with Patricia Kaas on first of all, showing off an off-the-shoulder, classy black number. Germany's Alex appears with silver, glittery trousers with Dita von Teese in a 1930s, black bodice, showing off her legs. The UK's Jade is in a floaty white chiffon and gold dress, with her backing singers in tailcoats and white bow-ties, giving a really classy effect on stage and screen. And, of course, Lord Andrew appeared with her on stage today, in a blue shirt at the piano. Spain's Soraya was in purple with her female backing group in matching dressed, while her men were in classic black suits.

The big hands went to Portugal, Iceland (especially mid-song at the key change), Russia and UK from the crowd in the hall.