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Tooji brings the house down for Norway

20 May 2012 at 12:38 CEST

"I feel like I have my friends and family here"

Backstage we spoke to Tooji before his rehearsal and he was in good spirits to say the least. He told us a little about some of the jewellry he was wearing including his mother's ring and a ring his best friend had sent to bring him luck on stage. "I feel like I have my friends and family with me here", he said. 

He also spoke to us about his time in Baku and meeting the other delegations and also about his first rehearsal, which went well. "I can feel that my voice is a bit strained today", he said when we asked about how he was feeling, "from now on I will just chill and take it easy". 

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A confident rehearsal

Tooji's rehearsal went much like before and Tooji told us that there were no major changes. Once again Tooji is joined on stage by four dancers/singers and another singer who stands to the right of Tooji on stage. 

Despite saying his voice was slighty strained, Tooji gave a good vocal performance and remained in tune with the backing singers, who are also very talented dancers and can manage to carry out quite difficult dance moves whilst having almost perfect vocals. 

No real changes to the graphics were obvious here, where shades of red, orange and in addition white strobe lighting set the scene for Tooji to perform, injecting an image of fire and heat that are synonymous with the message of passion in his song and the middle-eastern tones within. 

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His costume was different today, with only the jacket being the same as last time. He said, "I am wearing different clothes today to keep my costume crisp for the competition". Tooji also told us that it will be the same costume that he wore during the first rehearsal. 

"We had fun"

Tooji said in his press conference when asked about writing the songs he sings, "I need to be in the process of writing the songs I sing. I'm not a control freak, I promise". 

He was also presented with an Afrikaans cover version of Stay by one of the fans in the audience, which he thought was an amazing tribute to him and was very grateful. 

Talking about his rehearsal he said, "it went really well and we just had fun up there". 

As a surprise for the press and the fans in the hall, Tooji sang a very beautiful acoustic version of Stay together with a guitarist on the stage. It received a very warm response!

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