Good afternoon! It’s Day 6 of the Eurovision 2021 rehearsals. This morning we saw Malta, San Marino, Estonia, Czech Republic and Greece perform for the second time and you can read our update from this morning here.

We continue into the afternoon with five more Semi Final 2 second rehearsals now and then we’ll have the first rehearsals of the Big 5 plus The Netherlands.

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We will be now be giving you an overview of all five of the rehearsals in today’s post-lunch session – where we saw Austria, Poland, Moldova, Iceland and Serbia rehearse.

Austria:

We start off the afternoon with Vincent Bueno and he really isn’t missing a note in rehearsals.  It’s all about the lighting improvements with this one and it does seem more effective and compliments his performance perfectly.  He’s trying to portray the feeling of everything closing in around him and the sense of being helpless.  It feels like a more tv friendly performance today,  and although the changes are subtle they are helping bring across the feeling of engagement a song like this really needs.   Vincent definitely has a strong shot of qualifying.

Poland:

Poland were on next looking to take us on a ride, and it’s fair to say it’s been a bumpy old car ride so far.  Today Rafał and his team made a lot of positive adjustments with the balance between him and the backing vocalist a lot tighter and he performed better on the notes at the end that he struggled with the other day.  Given it’s in competition with Greece for the 80’s bops market it’s difficult to see Greece not take most of the votes.  There were a lot of pyros on the third run through, and I think it’s probably overkill and needs to be toned down.  Overall better but still needs work to qualify – the ‘Hello Europe’ line definitely should go.

Moldova:

Next to rehearse for the second time was Natalia Gordienko, and the big question this time was – would she try the big note at the end?  She did and it all went to plan for Team Moldova.  The cuts were tighter and it looked a lot more coherent today, you can tell Natalia is starting to feel a lot more comfortable on the stage and all of the choreography looked effective.  The backing vocalists felt a lot more in sync with Natalia’s lead today and they really complimented each other well and she looks stunning on stage.  A lot of people are unsure about its chances but I would still pick it as a qualifier in what is proving to be a very competitive semi final!

Iceland:

Next up we have one of the acts high up in the bookmakers odds currently – Iceland. Daði og Gagnamagnið continue to impress with their quirky but always fun staging which sees them make full use of their artistry and just so creative. Daði said in his interview with ESCBubble (up soon) that he rated his first rehearsal as a 7.7 out of 10, so I’m going to say he should give himself a 9.9 for this one.   The camera angles are all tight and as he’d have wanted and the part where three of Gagnamagnið are stood in a keyboard created circle and the choir comes down is one of the best moments of Eurovision 2021.   All I can say is that if you have a bet on this – you got a good thing going!

Serbia:

Our final rehearsal of this session was from the amazing Hurricane girls with ‘Loca Loca’.  Their energy is incredibly infectious and Sanja continues to impress and find new ways to nail her big note at the end.  It’s debatable as to whether the first minute has the opening impression that it needs to give off staging wise but by the end you do get wowed by Hurricane attacking that dance floor and conquering all before them.  This will come down to whether Europe take to the song but the rehearsals have ended on a high note for the Serbians.  Certainly in the running to make the Grand Final for sure.

Who was your favourite of this session of rehearsals? Let us know on our social media! And don’t forget to make sure to vote in the official ESCBubble qualifiers poll too – who do YOU want to see make the final?