It’s time to get your sunscreen out because Nicky Byrne just completed his first rehearsal of “Sunlight” at Eurovision 2016 for Ireland and he is burning us up. The handsome Irishman came out full throttle in his first rehearsal, nailing all of his cues and camera angles and giving an overall highly energetic and entertaining performance.
Much like a lot of other performances this year, “Sunlight” heavily utilises red lighting throughout the performance. The centre of the stage is lit up red as Nicky struts his stuff down the stage. As the song builds, the lighting moulds into more of a golden orange colour and the band behind Nicky is revealed.
A majority of the staging tends to maintain the same pace, colour and style throughout the rest of the entry – the only exception being the bridge before the final chorus where the entire stage is submerged in stars and disco-ball lighting.
Nicky has maintained the casual feeling of his performance through his outfit. He sported a simple jacket with brown and red and a pair of skinny jeans. It’s unclear at this stage if the outfit is going to change, but he looked charming and handsome regardless.
Ireland: First rehearsal at Eurovision 2016
Nicky Byrne’s “Sunlight”: Reviews and Reactions
Read all of our Eurovision rehearsal reviews
Photo: Eurovision.tv (EBU)
I think the main problem with other countries is that they produce songs with stupid lyrics and meanings which Make no sense to uk and Irish audiences. In fact many are translated into English and when I listen and watch I see and hear rubbish. The eastern block countries are great at producing this rubbish and then vote for each other Nicky Byrnes song is not great but on the night I have no doubt it will be quite a professional performance I’ve just heard him sing acapello in the Irish embassy Sweden he was spot on- Ireland and UK… Read more »
He has to sort out his live vocal. The parts of the song where he sings by himself are hard to listen to.
trz_maier CORRECTION: Technically Malta is an English speaking nation also.
I cringe everytime I hear the only English speaking countries (UK and Ireland) in this contest casually rhyming “together” with “forever” like it was early 90s.
Both entries are awful, it physically hurts me to listen to those poop songs
Close to the San Marino level.
He’s a very nice guy but this seems to me a weak effort.
You can also tell RTÉ have given him no money despite having no NF and him supposedly giving his fee back to the station?? Fully expect Dustin to make his comeback next year
As much as I like this entry I can’t see it qualifying. Kasey effed up the staging and NQed. Molly in all reality should have qualified but I think singing early killed her. Nicky is squashed in between 2 of the best female vocalists this year with powerful notes and I think people are going to forget there was even a song between Serbia and Macedonia. Not gonna get my hopes up. Ireland really needs change.
Ciaran, who’s spamming? This is a discussion forum where people are free to be opinionated. Just because a majority doesn’t like it doesn’t mean were spamming it. It just mean it doesn’t tickle our fancy. You try and you had a good start but Nicky crushed it.
No one said it’s a disgrace to the contest.
Ciaran, nobody is spamming the article with hate. This is a comments section, so people are simply commenting on the topic at hand. If you don’t like that, well, tough.
I like Nicky. I like Ireland. I want to see them do well. You say you try, but you need to try harder. Sorry.
Wow once again no one likes Irelands song and are giving Nicky a hard time about it. I get it you don’t like it but stop spamming every article about Nicky with hate. We try and to call us a disgrace to the contest is just immature and childish. How someone can like crap from Russia, Lithuania and Sweden is beyond me.
In such strong first half, which is unexpected, I fail to see this qualifying. Together with Switzerland
He has a chance to qualify… its just not a runaway qualifier
You may know that I’m not a fan of the song at all, and the staging does not change that.
I don’t think he’ll qualify.
The song is great but the voice and performance weak. But I guess that’s what happens when you hire the weakest member of Westlife, who hasn’t even sung since leaving the group.
I would like for Ireland to qualify but I don’t see it happening. Maybe if you went for Mark or Shane perhaps?
Ireland not finishing last in its semi would make this the most overrated entry in the contest’s history.
It’s so stupid to have the band onstage, when even on the pre-record there’s barely a real instrument in sight. The backing track sound like it was whizzed up on a laptop program. Ireland excelled in the days of the live orchestra. This is just bad.
I like Nicky though, and still hope he aquits himself somehow.
I think it looks good and might surprise people on the night and how can anyone say its one if the worst songs when everyone loves the cheese from Russia doesnt make sence ???
A definite non-qualifier
That’s a nice jacket.
LOL this is so bad. If he wasn’t an ex-Westlife singer this would be bottom (18) of its semifinal.
Really Ireland what you become from being the strongest Eurovision country…to this :/
Greetings from Australia.
Nicky is so handsome and always looks hot in leather.
Note how this entire article TOTALLY refuses to mention how his voice sounded, instead going with patronising lines like “he nailed his cues and was energetic” – HAHAHAHAHAHHAHA
I think it’s hard to judge anything out of just few seconds. Yes he had 1 bad note but the rest sounded ok.
And if the Wiwibloggs team say his vocals improved and that the staging is not that bad, then I believe them – after all, they have seen the whole thing, not just a few seconds.
dreadful performance, dreadful staging, dreadful outfit.
it’s what we’ve come to expect from Ireland over the last few years, sadly. a disgrace to the competition.
I’ve never thought that someone could be as bad as that chick from Azerbuyjan. His vocals are a complete mess, my god! The juries will definitely destroy this and to be fair, it deserves…
georgekirkas
But there is not video of Serbia, we have video of Ireland and Macedonia rehearsal not video from Serbia and Serbia is before that 2 countries. And we wait to long for read report from Serbia rehearsal.
The stage is way too dark for a song about sunlight, it would be more suitable for a melancholic ballad
For a song called “Sunlight” the staging looks too dark. I was expecting more gold and yellow and less blue and red.
@Reminder
There is an article about Serbia’s rehearsal.
Sorry Ireland, this is bad! There were much better ones today.
Good luck next year from Latvia.
This could go anywhere for Nicky I think. Slightly disappointed with the staging, I thought RTE were using all of their money on staging, obviously not or else “all” of there money is actually very little. Also, why do RTE also feel the need to fill the stage with instruments and people? These aren’t actually used at ESC and just there for show, back up dancers and backing vocalists and some LED effect was all this needed. I don’t know where this will go, I want it to qualify but I probably won’t be too upset if it didn’t. Nicky… Read more »
Nicky can t sing live like Samra from Azerbaijan and Francesca from Italy.
Where is article about Serbia, why every year your ignore so much Serbia.
Go Nicky !!
Go Ireland !!
<3