ESCXTRA.com are live in Israel at the Expo Tel Aviv press centre for day 1 of rehearsals ahead of the Eurovision Song Contest 2019! The countries rehearsing today, in chronological order, are Cyprus, Montenegro, Finland, Poland, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Belarus and Serbia.
Note: Montenegro and Czech Republic have swapped rehearsal positions for today’s rehearsals.
Below, you’ll see our written review of each rehearsal. If you want more, you can follow our live stream from the press centre at the Expo Tel Aviv by visiting our home page. There, you can watch our immediate reactions to every single rehearsal.
Furthermore, read our handy guide for a more detailed look at this contest’s rehearsal schedule.
Rehearsing right now inside the Expo Tel Aviv is Tamta, performing “Replay” for Cyprus. We will continue to update this article as each run through takes place, so make sure to keep refreshing for the most up-to-date review!
The stage is set up with six columns that have LEDs attached, which change colour in sync with the big LED backdrop behind the Expo Tel Aviv stage. There are lots of quick camera changes after the rehearsal begins with an initial spotlight on Tamta. She’s wearing a very sexy outfit with PVC hotpants and a jacket. Her four male dancers join her from the first chorus wearing top hats, blazers and netted tops. Tamta’s hair is styled in a “wet look”.
We get our first slice of choreography for the first breakdown. Tamta carries off the choreography perfectly, with moves perfectly in sync with her backing dancers. During the second chorus, the dancers rip-off Tamta’s jacket to reveal a top underneath.
For the “replay” lyric, we get the repetitive camera tricks as we saw in her music video. The lighting then turns dark for the middle 8 before bursting back into the pinks, purples, blues and whites for the final chorus. At the song ends, her dancers finish on the floor with Tamta in the centre.
In the final run through, we see the additions of smoke pyrotechnics for the final chorus of the performance.
Stay tuned for our reviews for the rest of today’s rehearsals here at the Expo Tel Aviv. If you want to know what to expect for the rest of the day, check out our rehearsal schedule. Meanwhile, remember to tune in to our live stream from the press centre, via our home page, for instant reactions to each rehearsal!
