Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
All of the second semi-final’s second rehearsals are under the microscope today, as well as the remaining first rehearsals for the Big Five countries. It’s a run of 21 countries, and one of the longest days in the press centre. Where’s the coffee?
Eurovision Insight Podcast: Daily News From Stockholm, Sunday 8th May
The longest day today with all of the second semi-finalists on stage, plus the debut of Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Ewan Spence is joined by Ellie Chalkley (ESC Insight) and Brandon McCann (ESC Daily).
Stay up to date with all the Eurovision news by subscribing to the ESC Insight podcast and our daily shows. You’ll find the show in iTunes, and a direct RSS feed is also available. We also have a regular email newsletter which you can sign up to here.
Brokeback Mountain love song? Are Joe & Jake a couple then? Am I missing something?
Now we’ve seen footage of all semi two and 6 automatic qualifier second rehearsals my predictions are:
Semi two (in order of certainty)
Ukraine, Serbia, Latvia, Israel (this is going top 10 in the final and for me is a better bet than the Czech Republic which is the most comparable song):
Australia, Belgium;
Norway, Bulgaria (although Poli could still lose out); Belarus (Ivan’s cheeky staging may get him through)
Then one from Poland, Lithuania, Macedonia and Georgia. I suspect this will come down to diaspora or neighbour support rather than song/performance quality (which Georgia would win hands down!). My money is on Poland although the 2nd place draw doesn’t help them.
In short, Semi Two is still hard to call!
As to the 6 automatic qualifiers I think only Sweden has a realistic chance of winning. France appear to have messed up. I don’t get the enthusiasm for Italy. The song’s not bad, but it takes a while to get going and the pretty but unsmiling Francesca has all the charisma of a stone. Top ten may be over-optimistic.
@Dan,
Read the lyrics and bare in mind that these are 2 guys singing this and you’ll understand the Brokeback Mountain’s analogy.
I don’t think they meant it to sound like this but the undertones are there.
Again, too many to go through individually but here are my qualifiers based on rehearsals…
Australia
Belgium
Bulgaria
Israel
Latvia
Poland
Serbia
Ukraine
Two out three of these – FYR Macedonia, Lithuania or Norway.
Special commendation rosette to Belarus for the best stage show this year…
Love the podcast but in the weeks before the contest there are too many to keep up with on the day. The podcast concentrates on the goings on within the bubble. Could you please add thirty seconds of context to the start of each episode in the edit to give what happened outside the bubble? As an example last week there was a side reference to the flag policy, was the flag policy revised on that day or before (even esc insight cannot tell the future).
Phil,
Thanks very much for this. We’re not going to alter the plan at this late stage but will take it on board as much as we can. During the debrief and analysis in May/June this will certainly be brought up. Thanks for your support and time!