ESCXTRA.com are live for day 7 of rehearsals ahead of the Eurovision Song Contest 2021 taking place at the Rotterdam Ahoy in The Netherlands!
Following yesterday’s Super Thursday, today we resume with the second half of semi-final two. The countries rehearsing today, in chronological order, are Georgia, Albania, Portugal, Bulgaria, Finland, Latvia, Switzerland and Denmark.
Follow every rehearsal live
Below, you’ll see our written review of each rehearsal. If you want more, you can follow our live stream where our team will be reacting live to every single rehearsal as it happens! Furthermore, read our handy guide for a more detailed look at this contest’s rehearsal schedule.
Rehearsal review
Firstly, remind yourselves what happened in the first rehearsal:
And now here is what we’ve noticed in today’s second rehearsal:
I still get goosebumps every time I watch this performance. I say this as someone who didn’t particularly care for the song upon first listen. This remains my biggest surprise of the rehearsals and is the song that has been most elevated by thoughtful and impactful staging. With every run I am more convinced that Portugal made the right decision this year.
I had wondered whether my initial surprise is inflating my perceptions of how competitive this is. However, whenever I watch another run, I still get the feels. A small reservation I have is whether a commentator speaking about the inspiration behind the song might turn people off, but I don’t think it’ll impact too much.
The potential is absolutely there to get enough jury votes and televotes to see them through, even though qualification for Portugal is always an uphill battle. Whether it does anything on the Saturday night is another final.
Qualifier or not?
Rehearsal video clip
As soon as the official Eurovision YouTube channel upload the clip of this second rehearsal, we’ll embed it right here for you to watch! In the meantime, remind yourself of the first rehearsal below:
Stay tuned for our reviews for the rest of today’s rehearsals at the Rotterdam Ahoy. If you want to know what to expect from the rest of the day, check out our rehearsal schedule. Meanwhile, remember to tune in to our live stream for instant reactions to every rehearsal!
