Eurovision Song Contest 2017 • Semi-final 1

e expected nice performance, but surprising flaws in the singing. As a song I'm not one of the biggest fans of it, but I can live with it qualifying, in the end it was expected.
Best dress of the evening for sure . Also great vocals, a pity it didn't qualify, the performance was great and made the song grow a lot in me.
I like the song, but his vocal performance was really weak, and I wouldn't be too sad if it didn't qualify. Let's see if he can do better in the final, I hope so.
I expected it. Despite the impressive high note the song wasn't really my style, and at the beginning the singing wasn't really great either.
I'm really not a fan of the live, she sounded like she's crying in the last chorus and in general she sounded really nervous. But I'm happy for the song, which is high quality, that it qualified.
the performance was somewhat funny and entertaining at least, but the song stays (though enjoyable) trash. He really needed a better background that's himself though.
WHY DID YOU MAKE ME SO MUCH FALSE HOPES I HAD A BAD FEELING FROM THE START AAAAA
How it didn't qualify is beyond me. I'm shocked and so, so sad
The vocals were great, I liked the performance, even if it was a bit too much artistic. Happy Azerbaijan reached the final again.
Salvador looks and acts so innocent that you want to take him from the stage to avoid his soul getting impured by the music business. Such a beautiful performance, and a small and great song.
how can she sing in a musical with a singing like that. It was really awful and hard to even bear this sounds. How she qualified is a big miracle to me.
also here I'm asking myself how this qualified, a really boring and forgettable song for me, but apparently it wasn't only he diaspora which brought Poland into the final. Still with Greece the qualifier I like the least.
the best performance of the evening to me, crowned by the catchy tune this song is. Epic sax guy is back and may have really good chances to do really well.
I really liked the performance, even if it's a bit overdone, and she looked kinda lost on stage. The song was nice and deserved a qualification, Iceland was actually my bet for the random qualifier of the evening, but sadly it didn't work out.
she was really on point live, but what she was wearing was ugly. (Another contender for Barbara Dex?) The song turned out as too boring to qualify, as I feared.
I liked the performance, the live was well, the song is nice, I don't mind it passing.
the performance was as underwhelming as the whole song, at least the love singing was ok.
The song grew on me today, even if the live wasn't really good and he was trying way too hard to be good. And he looks like an arrogant ass. But the song is great actually.
Great performance, amazing live, so how on earth did it not qualify? I'm really surprised after the live and with Finland it's the biggest loss of the night for me.

Well I predicted 8/10 correct, and from my own hopes 7/10 qualified, rather 6/10 due to shifts caused by the live performances though.

Some general comments: The hosts are trying to be funny but aren't.
The stage looks great, but there was no one who really was able to use it all. was the closest one there actually.
The camera is too focused on the crowd, so that we miss parts of the performances always. Also there are too less close-ups imo, but too many camera drives around the stage.
And I hope for better results or at least better performances in semi 2.

Songwise, this was always the weaker semi to me. But wow, it was even more disappointing than I thought it would be.
Countries like Greece and Slovenia were singing lower than they were supposed to. Countries like Belgium, Azerbaijan and Latvia are much worse than their studio versions. And the rest were mostly just sleepy ballads. The only ones who exceeded my expectations were Moldova. I liked their song from the beginning and hoped that they would qualify, and today they were really on point, the crowd loved it as well. They were pretty much the only ones that I wanted to qualify. After they were announced first, I didn't care about anybody else, they all left me indifferent (except Armenia maybe).

Here are my opinions on the performances:

Sweden: It's never a good sign if your Eurovision performance is worse than your NF performance. It was alright, but certainly not winner material.

Georgia: I'm actually quite surprised that she didn't qualify. The song is still bad, but she did a great job and would have deserved it more than some others...

Australia: This was one of those entries that I didn't particularly like in the studio version, but I hoped for a good live performance. He was good enough to qualify, but he isn't a super great singer either, missed some notes here and there.

Albania: Expected non-qualifier. I personally don't mind the song, but the performance just wasn't anything extraordinary.

Belgium: Sorry, but she is the Nina Kraljic of 2017. People LOVE her studio version, but live she sounds like a sheep. The studio version lovers are loyal enough to push her through to the final.

Montenegro: Expected non-qualifier. Vocals were so off. And even the performance rather boring. I thought he would do some really crazy shocking stuff. But no.

Finland: She wasn't as brilliant vocally as I thought she would be. The song lives from her amazing "Yoouuuuu", but she kind of screwed that up every time. I wasn't shocked that they didn't qualify, to be honest.

Azerbaijan: Before the contest, I wanted to call this the best Azerbaijani entry ever, but after this performance... not really. Her voice is too weak for this song. She can't impress anyone with that. I also expected a more spectacular stage show.

Portugal: I don't mind the song, but his fake psychopath movements are so off-putting to me. I don't like that at all. His vocals were fine. I expected this entry to have lots of Tom Dice moments, where the audience would constantly get crazy for him, but no. They were pretty silent until the end of the song. I never considered this to be a potential winner and now I'm even more certain that this will definitely not win. (, unless the jury decides to go full Raphael Gualazzi on him).

Greece: Lol. It sounded so bad in the chorus. If you can't sing that high, please tell your backing singers that you're going to sing lower, or else it just sounds uneven and horrible. This entry would have flopped so hard if it were from Finland or Czechia.

Poland: I didn't really pay attention during her performance, but from what I've heard her vocals were good as expected. Still a surprising qualifier for me though, as the melody is so so so unmemorable in my opinion.

Moldova: As mentioned earlier, the only act that lived up to the expectations and even exceeded them. Fun performance, danceable song, vocals above average. Deserved.

Iceland: Absolutely expected non-qualifier. I never liked the song, sorry. It's just so boring mid-tempo unspecial dunno.

Czechia: I'm sorry, Czechia, but you were my toilet break. The song is not bad. It just didn't give me any motivation to stay for you.

Cyprus: The song is too much Rag'n'Bone Man and the performance is too much Loic Nottet for me, but to be honest, he did a good job and I wasn't too surprised that he qualified. You deserved it, congratulations.


Armenia: It wasn't as cool as I hoped it to be. But still, vocally and visually pleasing and probably my number 2 of this evening.

Slovenia: The song does nothing for me. The only positive thing I could say about him before the contest was his good voice. But... He wasn't even that good. Singing lower than he was supposed to. I'm glad he didn't qualify.

Latvia: Meh. I just don't like their live performances. The studio version and the video are so nice and atmospheric. But live is just so trashy and bad taste. They could be so amazing, but then it's just a weird girl in front of a way too colourful background, repeating the same sentence over and over again, shadowboxing.

So yeah...

Looking forward to the 2nd Semifinal with much better songs I already know I'm going to be sad for some who won't qualify there