This afternoon the final five acts in the first semi final of Eurovision 2017 participated in their first rehearsals. We conclude our coverage with Czech Republic. Cyprus, Armenia, Slovenia and Latvia.

The first act to resume this afternoon was Czech Republic.

Czech Republic

Martina starts her performance sitting at the back of the stage. She is dressed in a gold lame one piece. After the first verse she stands up and walks down a yellow brick road to the front of the stage. Pink flashlights encircle the stage. Martina’s eyes envelop the back of the stage for a moment.

Now at the back of the stage, holograms similar to her promotional video are displayed behind her. For such a ballad, the stage is full of colour with a blue stage being turned into burning bright yellow spot lights and purple flash lights.

The vocals are very good and understated. She has no problems with any of the notes. The many colours on stage are actually in direct contrast to the down beat of the song. Interesting choice of staging.

Cyprus

Hovig and his boy dancers are all dressed in black. At the start of the song Hovig doesn’t move around a lot, but when the dancers start up, Hovig is in sync with them.  A light shoots out across the stage and Hovig walks along it meeting his dancers in the middle. One of the dancers knocked himself a little of balance at one point but soon recovered.

The back drop is white squares of which we saw similar in the Russian entry last year. Hovig dances perfectly with his dancers. White electric like lines shoot out from the blue background.

The song stops very briefly towards the end and when it returns, Hovig is lying in the middle of the stage surrounded by light blue sky in space giving the impression of .. well Gravity. He is a little out of place where he should be lying but he will see that when he watches his rehearsals back. Another good vocal performance.

Armenia

Artsvik is looking sharp in a black leather number, hair in a bun and accompanied by two leather clad dancing vixens. There is a lot of symbolism going on in the background, with old traditional images in pink and blue. The singing here is also perfect in what is a kind of out of wack song, Help You Fly.

Full marks to the Armenians though for brightening up the stage in pinks and purples rather than the traditional dark blue of so many others.

The dancers dance around Artsvik while smoke rises on the stage. There are hand movements like they used to do in old Siam. The song is over very quickly.

Slovenia

A flat like carousel illuminates the stage for Slovenia. Poor Omar Naber and On My Way seems to have been forgotten a little, amongst the more modern entries. Omar’s song is a straight forward sung old fashioned ballad, which he performs in a black sparkling suit and white shirt.

The stage has returned back to dark blue, while big illuminated light boxes, are used to guide him through the night. Omar holds the microphone to perform the song, which he does really well, though he just missed reaching one of the big notes on his first rehearsal.

The second rehearsal was sung with more confidence until the last line where Omar missed the note again. Nothing flashy in this performance, it appears Omar is doing this with no back up singers.

The third rehearsal featured more of the same, so it seems Omar is read to go.

Latvia

Pink hair for lead singer Agnese but she’s been to the hairdresser to get it perfect. Triana Park’s Line stage show features the same neon glow that they used in the Latvian finals. Agnese still gets her fashion sense from a Monster High doll but we love her for it.

This may stand out for being the only modern alternative group in the first semi final and performing at the end. Agnese’s black sweater said Thrasher on the front and she was wearing pants with one leg gold and one leg pink. Her band of two guitarists and drummer played intensively behind her.

More clouds of colour were thrown into the show , the second time round with puffs of pink, blue and green covering the stage.

That concludes the songs of the first semi final. Who do you think will qualify for the final?