10. Summer's out: Red is the order of Greece's day

by Richard West-Soley 63 views

The Summer vibe is out for Greece, and Sarbel's set has been replaced by vibrant, hot reds swaying behind him for Yassou, Maria. Enjoying one of the strongest home support crowds of all the entries, the Greek rehearsal was guaranteed a deafening reception on every run.

Molten red sparks fall behind the band as the music starts, with a burning strip of bright lava red running down the centre of the stage. Sarbel and the girls are silhouetted against this in the camera shot as the introduction kicks off. The screens fill with red stars as the song progresses, switching between red smoke animations in between. Crazy spinning white lights accompany the Greek dance break to energy-popping effect.

Sizzling on stage
Sarbel's ladies are positively sizzling around him – set off by the sexy reds – and really know how to move and work the camera. The guy himself knows a thing or two as well, and together they pull off another set of amazing performances of the classic Euro-topping dance routine. Sarbel interacts with the camera with a whole array of cheeky, knowingly cheesy facial expressions – he is definitely the cheeky boy to go with the cheeky girl of the song's lyric. The dance makes use of blue ribbons around the girls' waists in moves very reminiscent of last year's Armenian entry or Sertab Erener's winning entry of 2003.

Sarbel's vocal was more together in today's rehearsal; if this is the year for Medi-dance, then Sarbel and the Greek delegation may well grab the votes, as they employ all the tricks in the Eurovision book to superb effect on stage and screen.

PRESS CONFERENCE
The Greek delegation was warmly welcomed by the fairly large reporter crown in the press center. Sarbel was asked whether he has any more tricks up his sleeve for the final and he said the the final trick is the chemistry of it all coming together in front of the audience in the final.
When asked about the absence of the male backing vocalist today, he informed the press that he felt unwell and hopefully he will be there on the night of May 12th.

Sarbel was then asked whether he would consider re entering the contest in the future. He answered that it is a great honour for an artist to be participating and that one gains tremendous experience that is impossible to get in their day to day career. So he would be very happy to enter again for Greece, Cyprus or Lebanon (he laughed).

Next question was about how much pressure is exercised on him because of Greece's successful Eurovision Song Contest record lately and the high expectations of Greek and international fans alike. Sarbel answered that he does feel a little pressure in the sense "Am I going to do as well as the others?" but in general he loves a challenge and feels that if you do it with your heart then people will believe in you.

He then was asked whether or not he is imitating other artists. Sarbel answered, good humoredly, that he never has any other artist in his mind when performing, one cannot pretend they are someone they are not. People will not believe it. First of all you have to give them honesty.

Sarbel was asked to sing – and delivered to a loudly cheering and clapping crowd- a song in Turkish, a song in Arabic and the Greek English version of Yassou Maria.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dadx7UbhblE

Richard West-Soley

Senior Editor

Richard's ESC history began way back in 1992, when he discovered the contest could fuel his passion for music and languages. Since then, it's been there at every corner for him in some way or another. He joined the esctoday.com team back in 2006, and quickly developed a love for writing about the contest. In his other life, he heads the development team at the learning resources company Linguascope, and writes about all aspects of language learning on the site Polyglossic.com.