Good morning from the ESCBubble team! We’re on the last day of technical rehearsals! This morning and very early afternoon, the automatic qualifiers from the Big Five + the host country will all take to the stage in Rotterdam for their final rehearsals. After this, make sure to check out their press conferences as we’ll be find out if they draw first or second half!

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We will be now be giving you an overview of all of the rehearsals in today’s final session – where we saw Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, France, the United Kingdom and Spain rehearse.

Italy:

Måneskin are first up this morning to wake us up in style! For their first rehearsals, the band were wearing black and silver with lead singer Damiano only covering his top half with a black neck tie. Today the band have rocked up in red, and they look even fiercer than usual! Damiano has high-waisted red trousers with thin brace straps over each shoulder. They’re patterned like a corset but either way, he looks incredible! For the performance, the band are rocking out on the stage with a similar dynamic performance as before. Singer Damiano struts around the stage going to visit each of his bandmates whilst sultrily performing to the camera. The final riffing turns in to an extravagant laser show with added pyro for the final run as in the first rehearsal. Starts with a huge pyro curtain, quite literally lighting up the room, followed by explosive fireworks and pyro effects around every corner of the stage.

Italy have drawn … SECOND HALF! And quickly become favourites to win…

Germany:

Jendrik is back to give us a riveting performance of his unconventional bop “I Don’t Feel Hate”. The performance itself doesn’t seem to have changed much, with him still delivering a very high energy, quirky performance. He’s still bouncing around the stage with his three brass playing back-up dancers and the lady in the middle finger/peace sign outfit. It’s cute that he has decided to add a phrase in Dutch in to the radio part where he speaks to the camera towards the end as he’s running out to the satellite stage. Having said that, he seems noticeably more out of breath on the first run than he ever was in the last rehearsal session. Jendrik is definitely not short on confidence and he somehow makes the song bearable to listen to with just how happy and adorable he looks on the stage – like he’s having the time of his life!

Germany have drawn … SECOND HALF

Netherlands:

I think that for many, Jeangu Macrooy was quite a grower after his first rehearsal. The stage is slick, from the cracked glass backdrop through to the explosions of colours and floral patterns. Some of the camera shots there are the most impressive in the whole contest, and his voice is dreamier than ever expected. The staging and routine is pretty much exactly the same as last time. The most notable change is that they have scrapped the harness fetishwear that Jeangu was wearing underneath his deep blue jacket. Today it has been replaced by a opulent neckpiece with a pendant attached. It looks as hell of a lot better and looks more suited to the message and vibes from the song. Three fantastic runs this morning, with Jeangu & his team looking and sounding more confident with each run. This is the ultimate feelgood song, and their clear joy of being on stage really cements that.

Netherlands won’t be drawing a half as last year, prior to the cancellation, the host nation drew spot 23 out of 26 in the final. This running order slot will be carried over to 2021.

France:

Barbara Pravi is a pro. The staging at the national selection looked so unbelievably good that it had people pre-emptively saying winner vibes. Now that we’re five months down the line and are seeing everybody, I think people may have been right to say winner vibes from the initial performance. They’ve done all they can to replicate this success, with this rehearsal featuring the layered lights and the silhouettes with the beautiful flying birds. The ending with the shaky camera has been softened slightly to be more effective, but it looks incredible with her passionate singing of the final chorus. As for her outfit, she is still wearing the same as the first rehearsal… but why change what doesn’t need to be changed!?

France have drawn … SECOND HALF

United Kingdom:

The UK bringing out two giant trumpets that descend from the ceiling is the most UK at Eurovision thing to ever happen. But unfortunately once again the energy doesn’t feel high enough. The stage looks empty, for a ‘party’ song that could be a great opener it has an air of feeling flat. The first run was a disaster, the camera angles – especially for the final chorus – looked really empty. Just so many empty wide shots which didn’t focus on the high energy of the dance performance on stage. His vocals sounded pretty rough for the first run through, however admittedly these got better for future runs. Maybe I’m just saying this as a UK fan, but I feel extremely disappointed with this performance. It manages to cheapen what is actually on merit a really strong song. And the song is titled “Embers” … you would think this would be the perfect opportunity to use pyro!? Instead it’s one of the only years in the past decade we don’t have it! Somebody has messed this one up…

United Kingdom have drawn … FIRST HALF

Spain:

Blas Canto does such a good job of puling off the vocal on this one at the start with the acappella. He did miss the high note at the end (Manel vibes) but that aside it sounded great. They’ve ramped up the backing again with what sounds like a choir behind him. It definitely makes the song sound more impactful, and actually it hits a little differently to the original. The moon still looks as big as ever (seriously, it is HUGE!) and the backdrop is focused entirely around it. During the first run, there are quite a lot of wide shots which look a little off compared to the sharper angles from the other day. Presumably they are still looking to test things out. If Blas can hit the high note at the end like he did the other day, this could do better than expected!

Spain have drawn … FIRST HALF

Of course todays rehearsals don’t feature our lovely semi finalists, however we still want to hear from you! Vote in the polls below who you want to qualify for next weekends final: