Eurovision 2024, we saw the evidence of the second semi-final: the joke about pizza, Nemo’s miniskirt, Joost’s musician dressed as a chicken

MALMÖ – Bright sun, pleasant temperature, there are even some brave people who sunbathe bare-chested in the parks. It’s the Malmö that you don’t expect, the one that welcomes the public on the day of rehearsals in view of the second semi-final, the one tomorrow, Thursday, when we will also see on stage Angelina Mangowhich represents Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest with the winning song at the last Sanremo Festival, Boredom.

We entered, invited together with two thousand other journalists, photographers and cameramen from all over the world. Yes, because Eurovision is still the most watched international television show after major sporting events such as the Olympics and the football World Cup, the attention is very high everywhere.

The Malmö Arena is in a peripheral part of the city, the first port of call for those arriving by train from nearby Copenhagen, Denmark is just around the corner. A business center full of offices, shopping centers, futuristic buildings. Escorted, we enter as orderly as students on a trip. The tests will be a simulated live broadcast, basically a dry version of what will be seen tomorrow evening. The air is therefore more relaxed, at least for the two presenters Petra Mede And Malin Åkerman who, like the artists, wear real stage clothes. The two of them, however, with the variant of comfortable shoes, sneakers, heels can wait for tonight.

They greet the delegations of the various countries in the audience and receive shouts and enthusiastic applause in return. Malin Åkerman calls the Italians: “Are there any Italians?” he says in English, they respond by shouts of approval, “I’m happy to find you here”, he continues in Italian, “so I can speak to you in your language, which I have learned, you know I was married, that is, married, sorry, to an Italian: my husband was from Naples, can you say Italian even if you are from Naples?”. Frost. “But I’m happy to find you here, so you can bring me some pasta and also some Neapolitan pizza, which I still love very much.” You’re not going to do it again live tomorrow, are you, Malin?

Then here are the sixteen artists, they parade through their set one after the other offering, it must be said, fewer peaks of kitsch than the first semi-final. There is a lot of silver and gold worn among the singers, there is a great display of knee-high boots including those of the Spanish dancers Zorra, here as a guest because they have already qualified for the final, who enter dressed as if they were to participate in a board of directors meeting but then tear off their blazers to remain in crotchless corsets and stiletto heels. Eurovision jokes.

Among the oddities, the Swiss’s miniskirt Nemo who impresses with his skills as a tightrope walker on a rotating platform the size of a satellite dish. Hot-cold effect for the Austrian Kaleen who, having removed the coat with which he arrives on stage, because in these latitudes you can never tell, reveals thigh-high boots and a silver bodysuit. Miniskirt also for the Armenian Ladanivahowever decorated with ethnic motifs: in short, modernity and tradition, as required by the Eurovision aesthetic.

No hiccups in the tests, even if we feared it. The fact is that some sets are complex: both the Latvian Dons than the Israeli Eden Golan they use a ring, the Dons one is huge and light but is divided into two parts, and the technicians struggle a lot to separate them from the joint. The one from Eden Golan must be particularly heavy, they take it away after hoisting it onto wheeled trolleys.

An evening in which the bands return as protagonists: there is the Spanish band from San Marino Megara, although there is no shortage of the extravagances of the dancers dressed like skeletons, while the singer at a certain point takes off her fur and discovers a horned armor on her back like that of an iguana. Good thing the song is there.

Stravaganza Award 2024 to the Dutchman Joost, with reinforced shoulder pads like jeeg robots, very 80s style. With him a musician dressed as a chicken but with the circle of stars symbolizing Europe on his chest.

The song is titled Europeand it seems that he had promised the idea behind this performance to his father as a child.