Yesterday we hit off Day Four of Eurovision rehearsals in St. Jakobshalle in Basel. Now we bring you a wrap up from the rehearsals.
The first and second rehearsals for Eurovision Song Contest 2025 are being held behind closed doors without the presence of the media. The Eurovision Song Contest’s official Reddit account is running a live blog daily from the rehearsals with the latest developments.
In this article we bring you the ‘I’ve Arrived Videos’ and excerpts from Eurovision’s official Reddit account’s live blog:
Luxembourg
Laura Thorn – La Poupée Monte Le Son
Eurovision’s official reddit account reports:
Sung in French, La Poupée Monte Le Son translates as ‘the doll turns up the sound’, and it’s a fun, up-tempo bop that is both a throwback and a sequel to Poupée de cire, poupée de son, the legendary song that won Eurovision for Luxembourg’s France Gall exactly sixty years ago.
It’s also exactly the kind of uptempo bop we need after lunch, and we’re interested to see how the staging has evolved since Laura win The Luxembourg Song Contest earlier this year. The answer is…a lot – the Doll-Laura concept, with male dancers who combine 60s-style moves with puppet references, has remained, but the ability to project huge LEDs on both the stage and the screen has elevated to something else entirely.
Now Laura is inside her own pink and red 1960’s style doll’s house, with animated hands that reach in to reposition her through the opening sequence. She has five male dancers, wearing similar red velvet suits to the ones we saw at The Luxembourg Song Contest, but the way they interact with Laura is now a precision dance routine, where her doll-like stiffness at the start relaxes through the performance into something more natural and human. She leads them down the walkway in the second verse, figuratively and literally leaving the doll’s house behind, so the final section can play out on the frame stage.
This story is told in her costume too – the pink doll dress she wore in the national final has been replaced with a much more sophisticated version, in pale pink with corset-style lacing, paired with silver thigh boots. In the middle eight the pink dress comes off to reveal a sparkly silver dress underneath – there are no female dancers in this version, it’s just Laura and her dancers creating what feels more like a dance break than the original version. It was always a fun song, but this staging elevates it a much more cohesive and powerful bit of visual storytelling.
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Israel
Yuval Raphael – New Day Will Rise
Eurovision’s official reddit account reports:
First thing to point out – there’s a GIANT prop in the centre of the stage – the biggest we’ve seen so far this year. It’s a two tier circular structure maybe five metres high, with a curved staircase on one side. The top tier is slightly smaller than the bottom, and each circle is draped with a glittering curtain of silver strands that encase it all the way round. Imagine a modern take on a vintage birdcage, or a chandelier you can climb. It’s not entirely representative of either, but hopefully that helps you imagine it until you can see actual photos.
Yuval starts the performance in a shadow of blue light on the frame stage, wearing a tailored black trouser suit with square shoulders and draped flamenco sleeves. She heads back down the walkway in the second verse, and there’s a lovely single camera shot where she walks around the cage as she sings the French section, then climbs the stairs to perform the Hebrew verse and the remainder of the song from a platform inside the top tier. Up close you can see that the cage is made of individual strands of crystals, so more like a chandelier.
Another moment – at one point Yuval lifts her arms and the draped sleeves of her jacket look like wings, which makes us think that maybe we were on the right track with the birdcage metaphor. The LED wall adds flowing water over black rocks, the power of the water building with the final chorus until the whole set fades to white for the soft piano notes into the final line.
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Serbia
Princ – Mila
Eurovision’s official reddit account reports:
First thing to note re. Princ’s staging – the opening moon from Pesma za Evroviziju is no more, along with the spinning dancer and the leather trousers and waistcoat. Which means we’re adding Mila to the list of acts that have undergone a total staging overhaul.
Princ begins this performance in the centre of the main stage, singing the opening verse in shadow backed by a halo of light as three male dancers in black outfits draw him into a beautifully choreographed contemporary routine. He’s wearing a tailored red suit, and there’s a totally unexpected and dramatic moment where two of his dancers march him down the walkway, literally dragging him by his legs as the LED screen explodes with red lights and fiery graphics.
It’s presumably a visual metaphor for the Serbian lyric that translates as ‘you have brought life back from the edge’ – Princ doesn’t miss a note, which is extraordinary considering the precision movements and physicality of this routine. The whole thing feels a million miles away from Pesma – probably one of our biggest transformations so far this year.
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Finland
Erika Vikman – ICH KOMME
Eurovision’s official reddit account reports:
So the best way to describe this is UMK, but…go harder. Erika sings the first verse and chorus on a circular gold plinth, before taking her gold microphone on a fast-paced journey down the walkway to the frame stage. She’s wearing a new version of the black latex outfit with thigh boots we saw at UMK, this one more leather than latex and structured in the waist with metallic studs and long black gloves. No dancers required, because Erika entirely owns every corner of this stage – every step and look to camera is precision choreographed to allow her to connect with the audience.
And then the big finale – as the tempo picks up, Erika heads back to the main stage and mounts her giant gold microphone for the final ascension. We wish it was possible to describe how the last 30 seconds of bass feels in this arena, but if you’ve got tickets for the second Semi-Final you are in for an extraordinary finish. Or Finnish, if you like.
We haven’t even talked about the LED wall, but it’s much the same as UMK with giant ICH KOMME graphics and a final ERIKA.
