Yesterday, the EBU started to finally release the pre-recorded Live On Tape videos, on the official Eurovision Song Contest YouTube channel. This will be done in the current period with about 3 videos being released each day, until all of them finally has been released. After the request of a few broadcasters, not all tapes will be released to the public, which we’ll get back to a bit down in the article.
After yesterday’s first few releases, we could see the Live On Tape videos from Albania, Latvia and Lithuania in that order. Today, we are given the videos from Switzerland, Slovenia and Bulgaria. It didn’t take long to notice the pattern that the videos follow, is the same as the running order from the semi-final, with a few exceptions.
Switzerland: Marius Bear – Boys Do Cry
Starting with Switzerland, we can already see the great difference the performance from Turin had on this performance. For 2022, Switzerland once again opted with an internal selection and first released their entry close to the deadline. This left us with no indication for what we could expect to see at the contest, but we can see from the live on tape performance, that it was a work in progress recording.
The recorded tape shows that Switzerland was focused on the visual show, with lots of light effects. However, a simple square studio stage clearly couldn’t compete with a huge and advanced arena stage, that was the Turin stage. A light projector was also missing, which showed light and shadow figures on the Turin stage.
The tape still included a lot of work with different lights, but couldn’t tell the same visual story without the LED wall and floor. Despite all of this, Marius still manages to omit feelings through his simple performance.
Slovenia: LPS – Disko
Slovenia selected their act through their national final EMA. This means that the stage was set and ready to go for LPS, who won the national final. To put it as simple as possible, there’s no difference at all. The live on tape and the national final performance are near enough identical. This most likely means that the live on tape was recorded as soon as possible, just to get it out of the way, so the real work could commence.
If we instead compare it with the performance from Turin, then clearly here we see the work that was put into the final performance. In Turin we saw a lot of changes and different camera angles around the entire band and of course… how can we forget the large disko ball.
The band was more all around the place when performing in Turin, compared to both their live on tape recording and national final recording. The disco ball was the center piece of the live performance, which the band moved and grooved around.
Bulgaria: Intelligent Music Project – Intention
Last one for the day is for Bulgaria, who just like Switzerland, also opted for a fully internal selection. The difference is that Bulgaria was out and ready very early, as the Bulgarian song was the first presented song for the 2022 contest. With that in mind, there’s no proper indication of what the Bulgarians were going for when presenting their song in Turin.
Once again, very similar situation with Switzerland, we could see that the Bulgarian live on tape video was also pretty much a work in progress situation. A lot of the elements in the tape were also used in Turin. Front band singer Ronnie Romero was even wearing different style of hat in the beginning, we could even see the intro was the same as the one in Turin, with the focus on the guitar solo and then the added drums shortly afterwards. Even a few pyros were included and the bird on the floor at the very ending.
Probably the most notable thing that was missing here, was the half globe speaker prop, which they included in their Turin performance. More pyros were also included in Turin as well, but when comparing stage size, then it’s no surprise. It could’ve seemed a bit too crowded on the tape performance.
Missing Live On Tapes
As promised at the start of the article, we would get back into this section. When the EBU finally decided it was time to release the Live On Tape recordings, it was also stated that some broadcasters had opted to not show theirs for various reason, it was not said at the time which countries that would be. Today, we’ve learned that we won’t see the recordings from the countries of The Netherlands and possibly Ukraine.
The Dutch broadcaster AVROTROS has simply announced that they don’t wish to show theirs, and wish to keep S10‘s performance from Turin as the one to remember. Meanwhile, if the EBU is releasing the tapes in the same order as the semi-final performances, we were supposed to see Ukraine’s tape today and not Bulgaria’s. To no ones surprise, due to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, it is no surprise if we don’t get to see the recording OR if the EBU has decided to save the winners for the very last. We do however know, that Ukraine and Kalush Orchestra were set on performing in Turin no matter what and that a tape was actually recorded, just in case.
What do #YOU think about the 3 performances from today, do #YOU think some were better than their final staging in Turin? Let us know on social media @ESCUnited, on our discord, or on our forum page!
