ESCXTRA: Live from Lisbon

Day 5: Mikolas struggles with his back injury in his second rehearsal – PREDICTION & REVIEW

ESCXTRA are live from Lisbon for day 5 of rehearsals ahead of the Eurovision Song Contest 2018! The countries rehearsing today, in chronological order, are Azerbaijan, Iceland, Albania, Belgium, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Israel, Belarus, Estonia, Bulgaria, F.Y.R. Macedonia, Croatia, Austria, Greece and Finland.

We’re streaming live from the press centre

Furthermore, read our handy guide for a more detailed look at this contest’s rehearsal schedule.
In addition, for our immediate reactions to every single rehearsal, you can follow our live stream from the press centre at the Altice Arena by visiting our YouTube channel.
The latest artist to rehearse for the second time is Mikolas Josef for Czech Republic. We have just watched their latest run through of Lie To Me live on screen and here is our initial reaction.

Staging

For the most part, the performance is completely the same…
Two breakdancers against light-up screens, Mikolas starting on a small staircase, lots of blue and pink, looks good! Mikolas is having fun but it’s obvious that he’s reserving his energy for the live performance, in fact, he barely even moves, probably due to his injury. About halfway through, the dancers join Mikolas on the staircase and they do some pretty cool dancing together, although again he’s barely moving. When he tries to run back to the stage…he’s running very slowly and struggling.
It took 4 attempts for Mikolas to successfully start his performance – headphone issues, wobbly microphone issues, camera issues…
One of the male dancers has also magically changed into a woman, although this is just as a stand in as the other dancer is at home taking an exam!
Due to his injury, the gymnastics have gone. In their place….well, Mikolas hasn’t even made it back to the stage in time, he just can’t run quickly enough with his injury.
Mikolas is clearly extremely upset and it’s horrible to watch.

Camera shots in this performance: 99

UPDATE: for Mikolas second run-through he seems to have thought “You know what, I’m doing this”, and it was much more improved. He’s proven that he can at least still do the dancing and fight through the pain!

Vocal

Mikolas is distracted by his injury and is clearly not completely confident here, so he’s putting only around 10% effort into his vocals.

Costume

Mikolas’ outfit is different to day 1. He’s wearing the same white shirt and black bowtie, but now he’s wearing suspenders too, and his backpack is now brown. His pants now also have a white stripe down the sides. This is different, but it still looks cool!

To qualify or not to qualify?

We have taken a flash poll from around the ESCXTRA table here in the press centre and 7 out of 7 of us say…

YES!

Watch the rehearsal!


Stay tuned for our reaction to Ieva Zasimauskaite as they rehearse When We’re Old next for Lithuania. If you want to know what to expect for the rest of the day, check out our rehearsal schedule here. Meanwhile, remember to tune in to our live stream from the press centre for instant reactions to each rehearsal.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button