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Day 1: Slovenia and Norway take to the stage
Song 8- Slovenia - Rebeka Dremelj - Vrag Naj Vzame
Rebeka Dremelj has certainly produced the most controversial routine of day 1 at today's rehearsals of the Eurovision Song Contest. Elements of her routine suggest a female dominatrix influences will be used for her performance. Rebeka starts the song in a cage dressed in a long silver gown. She has two male dancers who skate on wheels around the stage. The three female vocals hold canes and use these as part of the routine. Towards the end of the 3 minutes Rebeka has her two backing dancers on their knees and drags them around the stage by leeds which are attached to the collars of the men. The wind machine is used to true Eurovision fashion during the song.
Musically the song has been transformed. Now there is funkier and clubbier sound with spanish guitars used and has a more aggresive feel. In today's rehearsals the song was performed in Slovenian throughout.
Song 9 - Norway - Hold on, be strong
Maria becomes the first artist of the year to perform in costume. She is wearing a conservative stunning deep blue dress, low cut at the front. Flanked by three blonde female backing dancers in matching tops and black dresses or trousers to the left and two guitarists to the right, Maria performs each run through of the song flawlessly.
There are some choreographed moves where the three ladies join Maria for some movement around the stage, forming a blonde group with the added effect of a wind machine. It is highly likely that it will not be the only entry of the year with this type of routine.
Videos courtesy of Charlotte Jensen at Eurovisionary.com
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Hahahaha check this out 
I love it
GO REBEKA TO THE FINAL
www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9JyC5vmLBg
Drussus 1 You have A. Babic as a writer on a competition tjis year. Chech Portugal writers )
GO REBEKA AND SLOVENIA TO FINAL!
Well, first rehersal of Slovenia was a mess - Rebeka herself said that. The cage didn't function right, they put her micro too loud ... Soeverything went wrong, but I believe in Rebeka because she has an amazing and unrepeateble energy on stage. She is truely amazing and her voice is also better than what she showed on this rehearsal. VELIKO SREČE, REBEKA, DRŽI SE!!!! 
And about Norway - I think that Maria did a really good job and I think she will pass it to the final Though I agree with some of you; GUITARS JUST DON'T FIT IN THE SONG 
!!!
What a disappointment after Alenka Gotar !! Bring back Babic....
I love that Slovenian somg - but gosh! i don't unterstans what they do on stage!!
*WEAK (god damned long days 
)
poor rebeka oh well im sure u will fix stuff up u sexy slovene!!
maria was good, but i think the song is lacking something, still prefer to see it qualify over half the crap in semi 1.. geez thats such a week semi
Well done Maria! Both Norway and Slovenia are great this year, but I was a little dissapointed of the Slovenian rehearsals But still - hope for the best, good luck to both of the girls!
Og kære Norge, gør Norden stolte - at gå videre til finalen, da I nok er det eneste Nordiske land fra den første semi som har chancen...
This first rehearsal was not so sucessful for Rebeka, hope she can show some better mood next time...but what is obvious only by comparing these two videos, the quality of stage background in norweigan performance is much better than for slovenian performance. I hope they can change it.
Great performance by Maria. Lycka till!
Slovenia... hahaha i could barely hear her... what was that? Well i didn't like it.
Norway... really nice. Good voice. People will certainly vote.
I think i heard this sing somewhere else. Its very similiar to something else...
Greets
Norway: Maria is so great and I think Norway will go to the final.
And the was verry good with the windthingi..
Maria du er bæst,,,
Lykke til.
Hilsen fra Trøndelag...
Go Slovenia! love it
I like Norway´s performance a lot 
The dress is stunning..good decision to wear dark blue.. and what a lovely backround. Good job.
maria is great!better 1000 time than seden
I like the Norwegian rehearsal , She's my number one ! But i think that she has to do some work with her voice ... KEEP THE WIND MACHINE !!! LoL
=)
Slovenia certainly deserve to make it on Merit - they need to get the performance much tighter though
I am one of the people who is not sure why so many people LOVE Norway's song. It is nice - she may make it - just
maria, for mee you are, and have always been the winner.. this is your true revenge from not winning idol.. jeg digger deg maria.. du er helt fabelaktig fantastisk
OMG Slovenias rehearsal was auful.
Starting from the stage colours...
and waht's going on with the cage, they were suposed to spin the cage, so Rebeca woulg get outh of it!!!
So messy moves...
bad really bad
Hope she'll do better on her second rehearsal, She dezerves to, I love her song!
Good luck
http://www.youtube.c(...)&feature=related
The best Eurovision video ever, and the funniest! Watch it through...
Oh Dear, oh dear.
Slovenia is such a mess. OK, it's a first rehearsal, but I think hands were the only one's that made performance. Her moves were messy, in some places she dissapeared from the center of the stage. She looked scared, uncompfortable or something like that. As much as I like this song, this rehearsal is very bad.
Norway is too typical and static to compete for the place in the final. Considering that the song is not the strongest one, so she had to put some efforts into performance, but wind machine and bad backs are too less to make this song stand out. And that wind machine could better suit at the end of the song, not all the way. And backs are just awful...that screaming at the end shadows all Maria's singing. And I kinda missed the ending, maybe some light changes or something beautiful to end the song, otherwise it was very flat.
Slovenia one of my favorites this year!!! Nice rythmic song, defenetly I will give one of my votes to Slovenia
Slovenia's song is very nice pop song. I like it, but the first rehearsal was worse, though i think she could be much better on the night of SF 1.
Norway was very good i enjoyed it again
Good luck to both of them!!!
Proud of you, Maria!!!!!!
Slovenia was fantastic. Norway deserves also to reach the final.
For Slovenia the start was a wee bit of a disaster but as it went on it definitely got better and they seem to have a good performance that will look better when we have all the different angles
Maria is stunning. If anyone is going to give a great vocal performance I would trust her
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