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Rewind to Dino Merlin's rehearsal

06 May 2011 at 16:58 CEST

After the keyboards and microphones had been set up on stage, assisted by the aid of lasers to pin point the positions. The artists were then permitted onstage to take their respective places. While they were waiting, Dino warmed up his vocal chords with his  'whoah, whoah' introduction. Dino was wearing a check jacket and brown trousers in this afternoon's rehearsal. The girls were dressed in crimson colours and the other three men were dressed in black.

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Earlier Dino Merlin's musical company showed up backstage in high spirits. Dino was merrily showing his promotional bag to Eurovision.tv. It includes a large number of souvenirs, including postcards, a cup and a small book.

Dino's commandments

"Here's my book. I read my commandments! Fun in rewind, good memories in rewind, life without stress in rewind, peace in rewind, first kiss (it would be nice!) in rewind, vacation in rewind and Love In Rewind in rewind," Dino started in a sonorous voice, before he walked off towards the stage, shifting focus to the rehearsals.

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The onstage routine hasn't altered much, with the trumpet player being particularly energetic running around the stage a lot. There was a lot of hand waving and clapping towards the end of the song, and the journalists and fans present were equally enthusiastic with their hands by giving a huge applause at the end of each performance.

Looks like rewind all round

The background LED screens were largely displaying pictures with a red hue, red curtain effects part to reveal a fairground ride, with hobby horses, overlayed with heart shapes, that were turned on their side, to look like the rewind symbol on many modern gadgets.

There was time for three complete performances of the song, with the final run through having the pyrotechnic  effects added, in this case with a fountain of sparkling effects all around the circular stage.

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Rewind to 1999

 

At the press conference after the rehearsal. Dino Merlin talked about when he competed in the 1999 Eurovision Song Contest.

In Jerusalem he performed in front of a crowd of only 4,000 spectators. “I like to call that time the analogue era. Since then, the production standards have risen sharply.” He admitted that he missed the orchestra accompanying the singers, because he preferred to perform live and not with playback.

“But there is something that will always be the same,” he explains, “that’s the music, the song and the singer’s charisma.” The group also performed an acoustic version of Love In Rewind