We are at the Expo Tel Aviv, and five more countries have now been on stage for their first rehearsal. Some of them nailed it to nearly 100% perfection, while others have a lot more work to do.

This morning the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest kicked off with the first rehearsals from Cyprus, Czech Republic, Finland and Poland. After a dinner break, it was time for the remaining five acts located in the first half of the first semi-final to take the stage.

After an In-Ear rehearsal, each act had 30 minutes rehearsal time on stage. That was followed by a meeting in Viewing Room where the delegations meet with the producers to discuss things like changes of camera angles etc.

Let’s take a look at the first rehearsals from Slovenia, Montenegro, Hungary, Belarus and Serbia.

Slovenia: Zala Kralj & Gašper Šantl – Sebi

Slovenia stayed faithful to their performance from the national final; EMA19, both wear the white causal clothes and stand very close to each other slowly moving closer until the end so it look like they almost hug each other.

She is singing by her etherical voice, while he is playing the guitar and changing the settings on the mixing console. The LED floor and background is covered with the space and nebula graphics which just emphasizes the whole outwordly atmosphere of the entry.

Montenegro: D mol – Heaven

(For today, they had changed rehearsal slot with Czech Republic)

Having six singers on stage is sometimes too many to organise. Especially these young people have problems with too many cameras around the stage and they didn’t knew where to look. So there was one run when there was somebody from the production team showing them every time where’s the right camera to look at.

Their choreography is not bad at all though… All members of D mol are dressed in white suits and some have red and/or yellow scarfs, that should probably remind of the Montenegrin flag. Vocally there’s nothing bad, maybe only once there’s a motivation shout out which in my opinion distracts from the song. And of course, the cliché gestures we saw already in the music video still remains. The very last moment shows us the group coming together and making some kind of ship from their bodies but who knows what was the intention.

With all in white, it looks a bit like a dentist advertisement.

Hungary: Joci Pápai – Az én apám

Joci delivers again a very emotional and soft performance. He is dressed all in black while the main colour of the staging is golden and therefore the contrast to Joci’s outfit is nice.

He tries to follow the winning steps of Emmelie de Forest as he is barefooted. In the LEF background, you can see pictures in black and white, which people submitted of their dads. The golden colour makes ornaments on the floor and background, and it looks like it is golden raining from the stage to the top of the ceiling.

Belarus: ZENA – Like It

Zena has some minor vocal problems in the first run, but it was solved in the other attempts. There are some boxes from sound technique on the stage and Zena is joined by two male and two female dancers. The female ones also serves as backing vocalists.

The background LED screens show various coloured animations that look like an apple and a bird, but who knows how it will look in the end. White smoke is used throughout the performance. The whole performance is very flashy and sometimes it is too much. Maybe the rule “less is more” would have been more suitable for Belarus this year.

Serbia: Nevena Božović – Kruna

Serbia keeps partially the things that worked already in Beovizija. Nevena is alone on the stage. That’s the main point. Again she wears black dress and in combination with her blonde hair and red lipstick, she looks simply stunning. What will definitely grab your attention is the LED visual on the floor and also in the background. It looks like some kind of ornament, probably just a broken glass, and it is in the silver colour, but thoughout the song the colours change to yellow and orange just as the broken glass shatter and then the colour is in the shape of a floating galaxy.

Very good overall effect which accompanies her flawless vocal performance.

Tomorrow will be an even more exciting day as we’ll continue with the remaining eight acts from first semi-final. They are the representatives from Belgium, Georgia, Australia, Iceland, Estonia, Portugal, Greece and San Marino.