William: Let me preface this by saying the monitors inside the press room weren’t showing us Daniel Kajmakoski in his full glory during his first rehearsal. I’m sure that when we see this with the proper angles and effects it’ll be fabulous. Now, as for today: This was a hot mess. Daniel has called on Grammy Award wining artists MERJ of “No Diggity” fame. Unfortunately they appear to be stuck in the decade where they came to fame, as this felt severly dated. The dance moves have been watered down (either for the ageing R&B stars or for Daniel, or perhaps both)…and they appear to be dancing in front of ancient Macedonian columns. We’re still trying to figure out how ancient history, 90s hip-hop and Eurovision 2015 fit together. It appears that there will be falling leaves projected onto the LED floor, and that could add a nice (and much-needed) touch to this. The leaves that we could see falling were enormous and seemed out of place.
FYR Macedonia: Daniel Kajmakoski’s first rehearsal
Chris: I was so disappointed by this. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve really grown to like “Autumn Leaves” but after seeing this first performance, that enthusiasm has been nearly wiped out. There were definitely parts where we’ll probably see improvements at the next rehearsal – the choreography will probably be slicker, for one, and the camera angles more on point to pick up any intricacies we missed this first time. But this is a song that could have been made simple and worked much better. It also feels like MERJ have been thrown in for some “star power” and it will backfire in a major Dita von Teese-esque manner.
Daniel Kajmakoski: Reviews and reactions to first rehearsal
Padraig: Oh dear, after Estonia’s class act this was something of a let down. Daniel’s vocals were fine, as usual. But everything else needs fixing – stat! The LED background looks out of place, ancient columns and reverse falling leaves. Add in a ramshackle dance group doing their best to channel Backstreet Boys and Daniel’s bizarre outfit, this is borderline hot mess. Apparently they were attempting a brand new routine, so perhaps the chaotic choreography can be excused on this occasion. Let’s wait and see how it goes the second time round.
Everything else needs to improve, I agree with that. But I won’t loose my faith for the adorable boy from Macedonia; go for it Daniel!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7jX3p3rdm4
Just REMEMBER it’s only a FIRST REHEARSAL. Everything will be fine on the second, dress rehearsal. Finally on the big night. GO DANIEL KICK ALL OF THE HATERS!!!
4 the record…I read today that the song of Daniel has been voted among the 10 lucky qualifiers in the 1st SF according to the contributors of *EscToday* so congrats.. 🙂
You can @ me as many times you want when it comes to all kind of GAY stuff <3 🙂
But im not really pleased when i see other mean people here to only @ me when they just post something that is really offensive & rude about me and even unjustifiably..
@ I know Olly about Mans.. 🙂 I ‘ve already read that article 🙂 I already was suspecting that Mans is bisexual and likes men 😉 By the way Mans was really right on his ”homophobic” remark.. I would understand if some people had an issue about his statement but to have the nerve of calling Mans homophobic was really ridiculous.. This guy just really ‘stinks’ of gayness.. <3 It would made sense to call other persons homophobic {like Donatan of Poland & Aram of Armenia from last year} but about Mans just NO.. Even if Mans was straight i… Read more »
@Olly the Swede: lol at you @’ing that at Mario. But for real, that’s great news! Haha, someone as hot as Mans is waaaay to hot to be perfectly straight tbh. He’s pretty much a pansexual then or something around those lines. But still, I wouldn’t totally be surprised if he’s just saying this to get some positive press surrounding him, probably an attempt to “once and for all” clear up that he’s not homophobic. Fingers crossed that this is real and further wishful thinking that he does come out as 100% gay though!!! Haha But yeah I agree with… Read more »
I like the background but everything else looks and sounds a bit meh…
Dear FYR Macedonia, why does your staging always have to look so bad?! I think Daniel is real eye-candy, and his vocals is relatively good, but I REALLY don’t like the staging as it really lets the song down! I bet Tijana in 2014 would have qualified with some more effective staging…. As most people already have said, they should have dropped loads of leafs down on the LED-screen, with Daniel standing at the front with three backing vocalists in the background (Slovenia 2014) and a girl approaching him at the end (Azerbaijan 2013) and fall in love with him… Read more »
Such a shame cause I really enjoy Autumn Leaves, but everything about this rehearsal looked like a mess, I don’t understand why they felt like MERJ was needed, they just bring the performance down in my opinion, this would’ve worked so much better with just Daniel singing with a mic stand and the LED leaves and some nice backgrounds and some clever lighting, this was just too much and nothing made sense :/ I hope it all comes together by the 19th!
BREAKING NEWS ABOUT MANS ZELMERLOW:
To Mario’s delight, an article published today in the Swedish free-newspaper Metro, Mans stated that he wouldn’t mind at all having a sexual relationship with a guy, as long as; “[…] if I would get a feeling, then absolutely”. Well, at least you can’t argue that he’s a homophobic person any longer! Link tot he article (in Swedish): http://www.aftonbladet.se/nojesbladet/article20776641.ab
I was informed in the news about the 22 killed people in the country of Daniel…Really tragic… No human life deserves to be gone with such way…. We only live ONCE in this life…. 4 us Greeks to make war with the people of FYR would be just totally out of the case… I do NOT want to lose my own precious *LIFE* 4 no one..! Im sure that we can solve our differences with peaful way means.. Their lands back then used to be indeed part of the GreAtY ancient empire of the Greek Macedonia of Alexander the GreAtY..… Read more »
I like the background – and the 30 second clip they released sounds really good actually so I don’t know what the hot mess is about but I don’t believe we got to see any of it. Still love this song, I rank it 8th right now.
Macedonia destroys EVERY SINGLE year their chances with a terrible staging.
Doesn’t look good to me this year, either.
FYR has participated in our Vision 15 times… They debuted in the 41st Vision of 1996.. Since the introduction of the SFs they have qualified 5 times to the final & 6 times stayed on the SF.. Its interesting because in 2 Visions they were qualifiers to the final & both on these times finished 10th but because we had jury picking the 10th lucky qualifier then they were ditched in favor of another countries.. In 2008 Sweden’s *Hero* was saved by the jury instead of Tamara’s *Let Me Love You* & in 2009 Finland’s * Lose Control* was saved… Read more »
Vocally it made a bad impression, but the backdrop was amazing.
I have to say that this year, the backdrop effects are a step forward and I am also a big fan of the separatable LED which gives room to amazing spotlight effects from behind. (Greece and Finland were just stunning)
My question is what is the thing with it, as in how does it match the song… Not weather it is Greek or not.
Well these architecture columns might remind of ancient Greece but i do not find the fact that they have them provocative or inapropriate..
These kind of columns exist everywhere in our world..
If Skopjans want to build their houses with ancient greek like columns & architecture style of ancient Greece then its not an issue here …There would be only an issue if they wanted to claim that their country is Greece or ancient Greek..
The song is cute…Not bad at all…
FYR has chances of qualifying to the final on this Vision…Not total outsider on the semi…
I think I like the NF performance than this… I cannot say that the R&B feeling mixes well with the song. Also, seems that there’s too much walking on stage. Nonetheless, Daniel’s voice is still superb.
@Leaf Obviously nothing, they are again trying to make Greeks angry with this backround.
As a whole I believe this will be amazing, the clip is very random …. I am not a fan of the background, this could have been so much nicer with some leaves falling down or some raindrops …. What does the window represent basically ?
Sadly it’s a hot mess. But need to see the whole thing. They should only have leaves falling, not this additional background.