The early evening rehearsals for the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 continued early evening with Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Lithuania and Australia. Read below, our reactions to the last three performances of the day.

 FYR Macedonia:  Kaliopi – Dona 

Dressed in a black dress and leggings, and a big silver ring necklace, Eurovision welcomes back Kaliopi for the second time. This simple ballad only needs a good voice and Kaliopi certainly has that.

She was accompanied by a male drummer and four superb female backing singers who took the song to a new level. There were very little stage effects apart from some litten up yellow boxes. Kaliopi has added a few extra screeches to the song, but alas the ending note on the first rehearsal didn’t quite work.

On the second rehearsal some fire was added and must have shocked Kaliopi as she lost the way for a few moments and was out of time with her singers. Nevertheless she recovered like the true professional she is. and was soon back on song, but alas the ending shriek still wasn’t quite right.

On the last rehearsal they muted the last note, so we’ll see how much she works on that.

Lithuania:  Donny Montell – I’ve Been Waiting For This Night

The second act in a row making another appearance, Donny was also in the 2012 contest like Kaliopi. This time Donny has been bleaching the hair. Dressed in a black T-shirt, with a Superman type logo, there is an early spin during the first verse – too soon.

Donny is really trying to give Lithuania its best result ever, but doing too much on stage affects the vocal. The stage is very black but lights up in the middle of the song. Donny continues the spinning and twirling but a more straight forward performance of the song would help a lot. The trampoline is there without the smoke effects, but surely they will appear for rehearsal three.

For the third run through Donny now has a white jacket and has changed the T-shirt. Fireworks have been added to add some occasion, and sure enough the smoke has been added to the trampoline. A little more work is required and no doubt LRT are watching closely.

Australia: Dami Im – Sound of Silence

The final rehearsal of the day comes from Dami Im, and Australia’s second ever entry. Dami appears sitting on a flashy lit up blue box, wearing a sparkly ballerina type dress and blue tights.

Dami is adding some riffs to the vocals to spice the song up a little, after getting criticized for the repetitive chorus. She makes hand gestures which create some visual effects on the screen. At one point prior from dismounting from the box, there is an effect which makes it look like she is floating.

When back on steady ground, it seems the blue tights were also an illusion as they go back to more skin coloured. By the third rehearsal the hand effects don’t add anything to the performance, so I’m guessing SBS will take a look at that.

Vocal wise though Dami improves with each performance and must be one of the favourites to win.