The first dress rehearsal started! Esctoday.com gives you a developing story about the show!
The hosts came up in warm coats, which they took off after a minute. Renars is dressed in a yellow suit, Marie N has a red dress and a tie in the same colours as Renars' shirt.
Then a 'connection' was made with a space station, where astronauts were talking to the hosts. The logo appeared at under the stage floor.
The postcards are composed by photos taken in Riga and elsewhere in Latvia this week on different spots. Between the songs we will see a short backstage view of the next participant and – as usual – the postcard!
1. Iceland: Postcard has been made at the airport. Birgitta wears a white suit with a black belt and the usual flower in her hair. As during the rehearsals this week, her performance was good. Under the stage floor stars are coming out of a kind of tunnle, the light effects are blue.
2. Austria: Alf Poier still wears his red shirt. The stage colours are like a rainbow and his hand was at the right place (his belly, instead of lower…). After his performance he got a huge applause from the press centre.
3. Ireland: A lot of blue again on stage. Mickey himself looks relaxed and his voice is as strong is during the rehearsels. Under the stage floor rings come out of a tunnle.
4. Turkey: Red is the colour on stage, where the performance of the dancers immediately attract attention of the viewer. Sertab is wearing a white-purple dress, her dancers/backings wear tops in the same colour. Singing went perfect, just as the act with the ribbons.
5. Malta: Lynn behind the piano, doesn't that looks sweet? She looks a bit tired, maybe because she had her party yesterday? She uses the catwalk in front of the stage, well inspired by the previous Maltese singer Ira Losco.
6. Bosnia-Herzegovina: Mija wears a black dress with white small ropes. Singing went ok, the stage looked pretty colourfull again. On stage, black and white are still leading, at the end of the song the light changes into red.
7. Portugal: The stage looks nice with the light ropes, pointing out the shape of the stage. Rita is wearing a golden dress which fits perfectly with her hair. The applause in the press centre was the most enthousiastic one until now.
8. Croatia: Almost 17 years old and she looks pretty sexy in her short. The performance dance is almost the same is during the Croatian national final Dora 2003, with pink as leading dress colour. It seems LTV likes the rainbow colours on stage; they useed it again.
9. Cyprus: Stelios playing football in the postcard. The stage looks pretty blue, with Stelios and his singers/dancers dressed in white. The dancers are doing their sexy job here too, while Stelios himself looked a bit uncomfortable (although we don't see any reason why to feel uncomfortable, because he's doing fine).
10. Germany: Blue again on stage, so Lou's red hair cannot be missed! During the chorus the stage colours changed into the – by now – well-known rainbow colours. The synergy between Lou and her backing vocals.
11. Russia: The postcard showed the girls refusing to sing during the rehearsal. Who was that next to the girls? Danny, your own esctoday.com photographer! The girls refused to sing after three words and called “STOP” during the first chorus. The audience started yelling and boo-calling. They started over again. Julia wasn't singing the first part of the second time again. During the bridge they walked over the catwalk, sitting at the middle simply laughing. Mass boo-calling was the final result… Part of the act, but what about tomorrow?
12. Spain: Red leads on stage, Beth and her backings/dancers are dressed in white and silver glitters. Beth's vocal presentation was disappointing, especially during the first part of the song. The last part of the song went great after all!
13. Israel: Blue leads on stage, Lior and backings are dressed in black. Purple comes into the stage colours a bit later on. Further on, everything went fine and at the end the girls took off something and the word 'LOVE U' apeared on their bodies.
A small break with the hosts on the baby stage, in front of the big stage. It seemed there was a slight problem, because the hosts were clearly awaiting something. Then they switched to the greenroom, which is actually blue! The greenroom is a few meters wide and very long because it's behind the stage near the roof, but it looks like a sky with cloudy chairs.
14. The Netherlands: Postcard in the parc! A fire cross and filming from the top are the beginning of the song. Esther's golden dress looks good with her hair, just like Portugal's Rita. The blue stage with golden stars makes it complete! A minor mistake in the camera work at the end, but the press centre audience was enthousiastic after all!
15. United Kingdom: Chris in jeans and a white shirt, Gemma is wearing a red dress. They performed okay, although you can think about the question if their dance steps are needed. It was okay after all!
16. Ukraine: A space rocket comes up under the stage floor of glass, suggesting the launch of Ukraine at the Eurovision Song Contest. The performance suggests you're watching an acrobat and his dancers singing a song. The whole circus thing is confirmed when Oleksandr steps on a black box on stage, but they did nothing with it. It seems they save the final act for the live show!
17. Greece: Mando changed her hair again, which looks great. She wares a black suit with laces between the breasts, which gives you a look between ehm… we'll, you'd probably get the point. At some points she was definately out of tone, but her high note at the end was fantastic!
18. Norway: Jostein's sitting behind the piano, just like he wanted. There seemed to be small problems with his voice near the second chorus. The blue stage fits great to the song and its atmosphere.
19. France: While Rita Guerra (Portugal) came into the press centre – she looked a bit worried – to check something on the computer. The French song went good and Louisa looked great in her red dress!
20. Poland: Michal from Ich Troje walked down the catwalk in his big black coat, Justyna joined him in a charming dress which looked very historical. Good combination, because Michal was wearing light blue jeans. For the bridge he walked to the baby stage, while Justyna stayed on stage. At the end he returned and kneeled for her. Charming performance… Poland next year?
21. Latvia: Martin, Lauris and good-looking Yana id an excellent performance, which surely has something to do with the fact that it's a home-based contest for them. The stage has different colours and the stage outlines were lighted again (well, this surely would be a good Christmas show!).
22. Belgium: The stage performance looks very peacefull, which can be a positive point but also it can work against them. The female singers looked a little unsure about the camera positions. The shots from Yves during his solo look good, just like the red and purple stage colours.
23. Estonia: Same clothes as during the national final Eurolaul. The camera work during the piano solo looks quite funny and the vocal capacities of Ruffus are totally used. The rainbow colours are back again and of course Vaiko did not forget to kneel…
24. Romania: A real Eurovision act again! The disco/rainbow colours are back again and there is a DJ sitting on stage with huge CD discs. The dancers are doing a good job, especially the very creative undressing act is nice, aghum… creative!
25: Sweden: Great performance, really Swedish song… The stage looked fine, although the camera work was a little too easy for this heavy up-tempo song. Well… one song to go, let's wait for Slovenia!
26. Slovenia: Pink, pink, pink… all the dresses are pink! The stage colour is blue again. Karmen knows how to play with the camera, something we already wrote about her after her first rehearsal. The choreography seems to be practiced very good. Blonde, sexy, up-tempo… Are we going to Slovenia next year?
The review of the songs is back-forward again, the Polish song was the first one where the press started to applaud, followed by Portugal, Turkey, (we were surprised too) Austria and Iceland. LTV will use the image of the review from the second dress rehearsal during the actual Eurovision Song Contest, because it would take too much time to arrange the review during the live show itself. Because they don't have the recording yet, the technicians used the images from the video. “The lines are open now for 5 minutes” appeared on the screen.
The interval act is the clip of one of Renars Kaupers' new songs, recorded at one of Riga's roofs. Marie N also got the chance to present one of her new songs in a recorded clip. After the two short clips we can see a small violin concert, joined by a piano with a carrot on it!
Ow my… the greenroom! The green room looks gorgeous as it's located behind the stage. The curtain behind the stage comes down and a huge cloud sky appears where the participants sit.
The voting was also rehearsed, although it was fictive of course. Russia got the first fictive twelve points from Iceland. After all, all countries ended up with 58 points and Finland was the winner!
