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Time running short backstage

09 May 2011 at 03:32 CEST

Read everything about Sunday's rehearsals in our daily summary!

Slovenia: Maja Keuc – No One
"We're enjoying and having so much fun, this is an experience I will never forget! We are like half alive now. We left the welcome party at twelve o'clock. I have to sing the song through, and I hope I will manage okay. We can't wait to get on the stage again. We should do more exact moves with our bodies than in the first rehearsal, because it looks different on camera."

Romania: Hotel FM – Change (lead singer David Bryan)
"I like to have my time of relaxation and meditation, if you like, to get in my place, where I concentrate. I think the first rehearsal was quite good, but I'll try to do a little bit better today, and I will obviously go 100% for the Semi-Final and the Final. It's nice with all the journalists watching the rehearsals. Of course everything's put on YouTube, and that makes you give 100%, since people all over the world are gonna see you. It all adds up to the feel of who people think are gonna win. So I think it's a good thing that the press is there."

Estonia: Getter Jaani – Rockefeller Street
"I'm excited, and we'll do our best there. I'll enjoy it, and we hope it will get better for each time. But we have the Belarusian song in our heads, she has got the dressing room next to ours!"

Belarus: Anastasiya Vinnikova – I Love Belarus (music and lyrics writer Eugene Oleinik)
"The main idea was to write a song about our country and how we love it. I hope that everybody will understand that every man must love his country. You can sing 'I love Germany' or 'I love Belgium' as well. This is a song about the feeling, not about the country. It's about what we have inside. Our television company originally chose another song of mine for the competition, and it was a surprise for me, I was against it. Thank god, someone put it on the Internet so we had to change it!"

Latvia: Musiqq – Angel In Disguise
"We're looking forward to rehearsing again and just hope it will be better than last time. Last time was really good, though, so now we only have to perfect it. We want to catch the camera close-ups even better this time. The hosting everywhere is great, we're meeting new people and are treated almost as superstars. In Latvia, you can't be like a superstar, since there are only two million people – and we know about one quarter of them personally. It's too small."

Denmark: A Friend In London – New Tomorrow (lead singer Tim Schou)
"We always try to think of ways to do things in a new way. To keep coming with these ideas that make you stand out, because you have to, since there are millions of bands and artists out there. We're doing everything ourselves and are still unsigned, so we don't have a label. For the past six years, it's been good for us just to get the feel of how things work in the business, which people are good for you and so on."

Ireland: Jedward – Lipstick
"We look like the futuristic Santa Clauses! We're doing everything different to everybody else, if somebody's walking, we will run. It's cool to do flips! On stage, we've done 16 front flips on stage, and the most cartwheels is like 26!"

France: Amaury Vassili – Sognu
"My first rehearsal was really good. Everything was very complicated in the preparations. But when I was on stage, it was very simple."

Italy: Raphael Gualazzi – Madness Of Love
"I think this is an opportunity to improve from the first rehearsal. You could easily think that just one rehearsal is okay, but it's important to have the possibility of doing it a second time and create good music with quality of instruments. They take care of it here in a very good way. I'm happy to be here, and I think Italy is happy to attend this big a festival, and one this important for the musical panorama in Europe."

United Kingdom: Blue – I Can
"The first rehearsal went good. We went for like 70%, and we still have some 130% to go. We will be 200% on the night! We're not Backstreet Boys or N'Sync, those boy bands who can lock and pop and all that, but we like to have a little bit of movement. We're just like most guys, moving along to the music."

Germany: Lena – Taken By A Stranger
"When performing on stage, I'm thinking of the song, nothing else. You're just hearing the music in the in-ear pieces, and you can only see the stage and the audience. So I don't know, it's a stage thing. Everyone's very nice here and I'm feeling very comfortable. I'm a bit tired, but it's okay."

Spain: Lucía Pérez – Que Me Quiten Lo Bailao - They Can't Take The Fun Away From Me
"The sound was really improving as the first rehearsal was proceeding. We wanted to change some of the background images and also some lighting afterwards. I think that it's great that we have some days of waiting now. After that, we will have a very intense time. While the rest of the countries are rehearsing and trying to proceed from the Semi-Finals, we will keep on rehearsing and doing our own stuff, so it's not that we are going to be waiting. Of course, for the last rehearsals, we have to be ready and can just do some final touches."

Above, the participants are presented in the running order of the rehearsals. They will perform in the same order in the Second Semi-Final, on the 12th of May, and the Final on the 14th of May.