What happened today in Kiev: Day Seven

Every night around 23:00 CET, we summarize the events that occurred in Kiev. A historic calm Eurovision Saturday, with only 13 rehearsals from second-semi-finalists, lasting until only 4 o’clock CET.

In What Happened Today we close off the day with an overview of the most important facts and videos. Have you been working all day? Or you did not have time to follow the rehearsals? Everything you may have missed – you can catch up every night in this article.

All the Songs in Rewind!

We start of this rubric every night by taking you back to all rehearsals that we have seen today. We finally got access to the stage and were able to record the full rehearsals for you. Check out all songs back to front in Songs in Rewind:

Bulgaria improves visual package

Sacha Jean-Baptiste managed to get her way in today’s Bulgarian rehearsal. They added distorted camerashots, and a few quick camera switches, which worked well together with Kristian Kostov’s movements. Kristian wore the black official outfit with the handgloves. Dark but simple background that turns into a rain backdrop.

After the first rehearsal, Bulgaria’s odds for victory dropped slightly, but today it seems that they are back on track to become Italy’s main competitor for victory. The visual package is finally up to speed.

Anja Nissen changes back to her National Final dress

Big change for Australia’s Anja Nissen, competing for Denmark in this Eurovision. A few days ago she told ESCDaily that she had sent the much criticized dress from her first rehearsal back to Denmark for “some slight alterations”. However, today it turns out that the dress is not returning to Kiev. Instead, Anja now wears a fully red dress highly similar to the one from the national final. Anja’s vocals remain top notch, and at the press conference she gave special attention to her backing vocal team.

OG3NE happy, but will keep practicing

Girl group OG3NE from the Netherlands was happy with today’s second rehearsal. The girls showed once again that they have thought about their staging for a long time, and can sing very well. The total package is finished, with backdrops, costumes, movements, camera angles and, as mentioned very strong vocals.

Still, the girls remain critical. “We are very detail oriented,” Lisa said at the press conference. “We feel like it is almost perfect now – but not yet. So we will keep practicing and finetuning in our hotel this afternoon.” As a result of this perfectionism, OG3NE was not doing interviews after their press conference today.

Norway combines sampled voices with hologram

Again a lot of reactions in the press center to the Norwegian rehearsal today. After the “sampled voices gate” of earlier this week, JOWST now also brings a hologram on stage. Two heads are projected on stage to portray the phrase “I’m gonna kill that voice in my head”. It gives Norway an interesting and polished visual package to work with.