Germany’s Eurovision national final, Das deutsche Finale 2024, will take place on Friday. Ahead of this, our blogger Youyou got the chance to watch the first rehearsals by invitation of broadcaster NDR.
Below are our exclusive reviews and photos from Wednesday’s first rehearsals from inside the Berlin Adlershof studio. We will review all the performances in the same running order as the final on Friday.
Das Deutsche Finale 2024: First rehearsals
1. NinetyNine – “Love On A Budget”
NinetyNine will perform first on Friday night. As the rehearsal unfolds, the stage transforms into a mesmerising urban landscape, reminiscent of the bustling streets of New York City. The LED backdrop flickers to life, showcasing towering skyscrapers bathed in the glow of neon lights. It also features images of people hugging, which were collected from fans a few weeks ago.
2. Leona – “Undream You”
During the rehearsals, Leona was wearing a white dress and sang in front of an LED display featuring her face. She performed three times. However, each rehearsal was different. The first time, a continuous shot captured her performance as cameras orbited around her. The second rehearsal introduced a different shooting technique. During the third rehearsal, the addition of dry ice and adjustments to the positioning of her face on the LED further elevated the visual spectacle, creating an ethereal atmosphere. We are wondering which version she’ll use in the finals.
3. Isaak – “Always On The Run”
During the initial rehearsal, Isaak stood at the centre of the stage, flanked by two semi-transparent LED panels emitting a futuristic glow. However, as subsequent rehearsals progressed, the decision was made to eliminate this particular stage design. The LED background transforms into a cyberpunk-inspired cityscape. Isaak’s performance is a masterclass in vocal prowess and stage presence.
4. Galant – “Katze”
Galant‘s props include walls made of over 30 TVs. The live version of “Katze” has more techno vibes than the studio version, possibly due to better sound setup in this professional studio. The background is predominantly red, with the singer mimicking cat-like movements during the chorus. LED screens feature many cat eyes. Their vocals are excellent.
5. Floryan – “Scars”
Floryan takes to the stage in a moment of solitary artistry, bathed in a soft wash of white light that casts long shadows across the expanse. Although the staging remains unchanged from last week’s wildcard show (but this time with LED background), its very simplicity serves as a testament to the purity of Floryan’s artistry.
6. Bodine Monet – “Tears Like Rain”
A wall made of leaves is suspended in the centre of the stage. Bodine emerges from behind the leaf wall, which slowly rises. The background resembles a lake, with mist rising slowly. Four backing vocalists join during the second chorus. Bodine hits impressive high notes towards the end. They rehearsed three times, with special stage fireworks added in the final rehearsal.
7. Ryk – “Oh Boy”
In the heart of the rehearsal space, a circular stage is built and Ryk stands at its centre. At the beginning of the song, a single beam of light cleverly obscures half of Ryk’s face, casting him in an enigmatic aura that speaks of mystery. The LED screens come alive with intricate patterns and shapes, resembling the undulating waves of sound that Ryk conjures with his voice. His vocal sounds even better than the studio version. There is no doubt that he will be one of the biggest competitors on Friday night.
8. Marie Reim – “Naiv”
Marie Reim performs on a massive staircase stage — reminiscent of Cascada’s Eurovision 2013 performance, but this time much larger. She starts with a back view, then descends during the second chorus. Four male dancers strip to shirts midway. The final rehearsal includes some stage fireworks. Will she bring German Schlager back to Eurovision?
9. Max Mutzke – “Forever Strong”
Although Max Mutzke is performing last on Friday, he was the first one to perform in Wednesday’s rehearsals. Max stands alone on stage with an LED background displaying red and black silhouettes. During the chorus, the LED screen shows some lyrics. The stage setup is simple, with Max standing and singing for three minutes. His vocals are excellent, flawless till the end, when the LED displays “forever strong”.
All you need to know before the live show
In total, nine songs will be competing in Friday’s final. Multiple Eurovision participant Mary Roos (1972 and 1984), entertainer Riccardo Simonetti, pop star Florian Silbereisen, singer Alli Neumann and the wildcard show “Ich will zum ESC!”’s coaches Conchita Wurst and Rea Garvey will join the show as guests, together with last year’s national final winner Lord of the Lost. Same as previous years, Barbara Schöneberger will return as the host.
Das deutsche Finale 2024 will broadcast at 22:05 CET on Friday. You can watch the show online here.
The winning act will be determined by the votes of the international jury and televotes. Firstly, eight international juries, each consisting of five music professionals, from Spain, Lithuania, Switzerland, Austria, United Kingdom, Sweden, Croatia and Iceland will evaluate the performances from the previous evening’s dress rehearsal. The total scores are then converted back into one set of points: 12, 10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. The act with the most votes from the public (by phone, SMS, and online) will receive 12 points, the second act will receive 10 points, and so on. After both sets of voting, the winner is the act with the most points. If there is a tie for first place, the higher number of audience votes will decide who goes to Malmö.
If you have a German IP address, you can not only vote per SMS or phone, but also vote online for free. The online voting will start during the show. You can vote from eurovision.de, as well as nine radio stations’ websites (Antenne Brandenburg, BAYERN 3, Bremen Vier, hr3, MDR Jump, NDR 2, SR 1, SWR3 und WDR 2).
Which act do you think could take Germany to the top once again? Are you excited for the national final on Friday? Let us know in the comments!
You can throw tomatoes, curse me, whatever, but I need to say. There is 83 million people living in this country, and they can never suggest even single good song during the selection every year? Where did the whole music production of Germany disappear? And this bloody ARD is ripping off money every month from everyone living in Germany with this TV/Radio contribution + making a lot of money through ads and they still cannot make a normal show that does not look tasteless? Sometimes I really have a feeling that for some nations its really inherited to have some… Read more »
Ryk for Malmö!
Ryk can’t win Eurovision. That’s the first healthy thought we need to head towards this national final with.
Do you think any of them can?
I think it’s Bodine’s for the taking.
Zandvoort2025 i think
Germany hosting in Zandvoort? Now that would be something else … ?
BREAKING NEWS! Israel sent 2 songs to the EBU, they asked Israel to check the songs that they are not too “political” for the competition. Eden Golan recorded both songs. One of the songs was written by Eden and the 2 creators of “Unicorn” and the other song was written by the producer who produced “Toy” (Eurovision 2018 winner). Israel is waiting for the EBU’s decision.
Unicorn and Toy … this is a threat to our ears?
Is this an indirect suggestion that EBU might reject them and force Israel to withdraw? I don’t understand what you mean by “they asked Israel to check the songs that they are not too “political” for the competition”.
So they can then go and cry, “we didn’t do as well because the EBU purposely chose the worse of the two songs”. Nobody submits two songs for approval. Every country just submits their one song and if there is a problem the EBU then lets them know. Again, Israel thinking they’re entitled to special treatment.
First of all, Israel were forced to have their songs checked by the EBU. Secondly, they simply don’t seem to have made their final decision yet. What’s your problem, FFS?
Song, not songs. Each country gets to submit only one song.
Yes, and Israel have not submitted ANY yet. It’s just a pre-check to get clearance to go ahead. Other countries could do the same if necessary.
As Jonas says, broadcasters often get advice from EBU before they submit their songs. This year already NRK said that EBU didn’t have any concerns about the lyrics of “Ulveham” before it won MGP (but they asked Gåte to change the lyrics anyway), and YLE said that EBU had no issues with Windows95man’s name (although I expect them to have issues with the staging if it features Microsoft’s logo as in UMK).
Been Broken for the last few days! Staggering!
Oh boy is extremely boring
Agree
Oh no, not the 12-10-8-…-1 system for juries and televote. More and more national finals move away from this and Germany brings it back. Did the producers dislike how uneven televote scores were last year that they refused the proportional system?
I guess that could be one reason. Historically, NDR has often tried to prevent its NF backmarkers from being ridiculed. Yet that totally failed with the 2022 system and Emily Roberts. And with the 2023 system, it was plain obvious for everyone to see that almost all of the televotes went to Lord of the Lost and Ikke Hüftgold. With this system, no one gets shamed due to a landslide victory and the show will be exciting till the very end.
Are you Nils from ESC Kompakt? Big Hello them from Rike?
Hallo zurück!
Thanks for the reply. I actually think this system usually makes things less exciting. We’ll see how it goes for Germany
I sense that ISAAK will impress the most televoters with his vocal prowess. They like that sort of thing in Germany, remember Andreas Kummert. My favourite song is Forever Strong, apart from the appalling ‘so freaking good’ lyric.
Max has the best vocals, though. Just a shame the song is so dull.
I just assumed that Ryk would be sitting at a piano, like he was in 2018. I suppose he wants to distance himself from the Duncan Laurence comparisons.
Also, his 2018 staging was regarded as contributing to his failure, so I can understand he’s trying something different. But this year, his first rehearsal was universally praised, so I’m keeping my hopes high.
Ryk for the win!
I’m surprised how minimal the staging concepts are. Just lighting and LEDs for most acts. Can’t they just hire someone from the Nordics to stage the show for the artists? Would be nice to get a whole concept for each song that can be directly translated to Malmo.
All of those stagings were created by Marvin Dietmann … but so far, they are said to be better than what we usually get to see at German NFs. Though that bar admittedly isn’t too high, either.
Unfortunately Germans think that staging is only something to overplay missing talent or low quality. It’s only high quality when it’s able to stand for itself with nothing going on around it, so nothing can distract from the high quality product. Germany still lives in a world where they think they only need to slap the label „made in Germany“ on something and it will ultimately sell. But those times never existed in Eurovision for them and unfortunately those times are also over outside the music world. I think it’s very sad because staging and show is not an enemy… Read more »
Prime time shows in the German speaking area start at 20:15. The fact that this starts at 22:05 shows that NDR really couldn’t care less about this. It’s just something to get over with.
The interest about this national final here in Germany is next to zero.
Well, NDR has worked hard for that zero. I didn’t bother watching the last two German NFs, either. This time, I’ll tune in because the songs aren’t as bad and I wanna see if Michelle’s daughter makes it but it’s understandable that nobody is interested.
I´m german and my personal interest is zero….
next week we gotta stan Mark Keller on lets dance though! the german liam neeson looks wise
That’s very true unfortunately. I do hope that they will indeed hand over Eurovision to some other broadcaster, as rumours suggested a few months ago.
Wow some of these look good despite their simplicity. Ryk, Bodine, Marie and Isaak could all glow up live. But it’s Galant who could have the runaway song and performance if it’s gonna be THAT memorable with the TVs. I am interested what they will show, because they will CERTAINLY be giving us a visual treat on them…and apparently they can sing so don’t count them out for Malmo?!
The stage looks really good. I’m happy to hear that Ryk sounds good, because this song might very well come alive when performed live and that’s what I’m hoping for. Otherwise it could very well be Marie winning the televoting, which I actually wouldn’t mind either. I guess it’s 50% televoting and 50% juries, with ranked points 1-12, as usual, right?
Exactly. With 8 international juries, whose points will be aggregated to a single set of 1–12 points. There won’t be 7 points though, so it’ll be 1–6, 8, 10, 12.
Well, it’s 9 songs so they had to skip a score anyway. They have used this system many times before. Not sure if it makes a difference if they don’t have any good songs in the national final in the first place.
I like the songs from Bodine and Ryk most. I hope one of them will win the ticket to Sweden
Best lineup ever for Germany!
Marie Reim for the win! Ryk is massively overrated, such a bore of a song.
Well said, Olaf! A flavorful modern German schlager song by a capable vocalist and attractive performer would be perfect. Ryk’s song is too formulaic and overdramatic for the sake of it, it’s nothing we haven’t heard before.
Agree – we have heard it all before million times. He’s capable vocalist but the song is just not there.
So you didn’t really listen!
It’s a really artistic song, that stands out! Songs like “Naiv” are the basic songs, a Schlager like 10000 others, nothing special and repetive!
But “Oh boy” takes the listener on an unexpected yourney.
If I have to compare it to other ESC-songs, it would be “Arcade” from Duncan Laurence or “Tout le universe” from Djon’s Tears.
And they did pretty well, as we all know!
Marie Reim = bottom 5 for Germany once again. No doubt about that.
The production looks good! It seems that Germany is slowly starting to take Eurovision more seriously. My favourite is still Ryk
Ryk is Eurovision winning material. Germany is back.
So it’s gonna be between Ryk, Bodine and Marie I see.
I see the jury going with Ryk and Bodine, and the televote with Marie.
Never will Marie Reim become first place in the televote.
It will. She is very popular in Germany and the genre itself has a huge fanbase. Same with Max Mutzke sadly, who also has a lot of fans.
Her parents are very popular and her mother already participated (2001 in Copenhagen). But with this voting system she hasn´t good chances because NDR wants to avoid “power voting”.
Her mom is quite lovely, i still find it a shame she had to withdraw from lets dance few years ago due to a back injury
“Very popular” is relative! If you aren’t into Schlager you don’t know her.
I never heard of her before. Sure I knew her parents! Sometimes you have heard music you don’t connect with during growing up, because your parents liked it
Why? She’s the most popular, she has one of the few uptempos of the selection, and she is coming very late in the running order. I think she’ll get the 12 points from the televote. Let’s see how the jury rank her…
The jury definitely won’t go easy on her, so she’s already out of contention. Still it could be a very exciting final. Ryk, Max Mutzke, Bodine Monet, Isaak and perhaps even Leona all could end up winning.