Today, the release of live on tapes continued once more, and we are slowly reaching the conclusion of the release of all the approved live on tape recordings. North Macedonia ended the line yesterday, leaving Estonia, Romania and Poland next in line, and thankfully, we ended up getting these 3 as well.
Estonia: Stefan – Hope
Stefan finally got his chance to represent Estonia at this year’s contest, after a few previous attempts. Of course, he had to win Eesti Laul first, which is Estonia‘s national final.
As it has been with most national final winner, we once again see a near enough copy of the national final performance, but in this case… it’s once again the same. Stefan is still performing with a sepia filter, still has his trusty guitar and even the two dueling cowboys on stage, who were scraped for the Turin performance.
Not much can be said further about the performance, from the very beginning it was kept simple and it stayed like that the entire time, with Stefan focused on his performance.
Romania: WRS – Llámame
It’s honestly getting harder and harder to put words on these tapes, but we’re almost at the end by now, so let’s keep it going with WRS, who won Selectia Nationala in Romania, in order to represent the country at this years contest.
Anyhow, since it’s once again a national final winner, we once again have a replica performance from the national final as well. The camera angles are slightly different at different times, but other than that, the dance routine pretty much remains the same and so is the version of the song.
The smart decision made by WRS, is that he used the Eurovision edit for his national final performance, so had he been unable to perform on the Turin stage, at least the final version of the song would’ve been heard.
Poland: Ochman – River
You’d think since we’re going with another national final winner, we’d get something similar to that, but surprising it is NOT the case with Poland and Ochman, who in fact won a national final as well.
Instead, we actually got something that was closer to the final product instead. At the national final, Ochman had a very simple performance and overall concept, by only being accompanied with a drummer on stage. For the live on tape recording, we see Ochman perform on a smaller stage, but with the same dark dressed dancers and a waterfall in front of the entire stage, we even get the drastic lighning effects as well.
Of course, there was no waterfall in Turin, so that’s why the Polish made use of a rainy camera effect instead, while the water fountain of the Turin stage was just running in front, which it pretty much did for all acts this year.
In the end, we got both the live on tape recordings from Romania and Poland, who both were among the six countries that had the national jury votes removed. Azerbaijan and Georgia both opted not to show theirs, while San Marino was the first country to do so and now, only the live on tape from Montenegro is missing. It would however appear, that the removal of the jury votes did not have an effect on this decision from the six countries.
Only two days remain now with live on tape releases, and the countries that remain are Montenegro, Belgium, Sweden and the BIG 5 countries. It has already been confirmed that Czech Republic had also opted out of showing their tape.
What do #YOU think about today’s 3 live on tape releases and do #YOU have any expectations for the remaining ones? Let’s hear from #YOU on our forum HERE or on our social media platforms.
