Albania | Jonida Maliqi impresses at her First Rehearsal

Welcome back to Eurovoxx's coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 rehearsals! We're already at day four which means today we will see the first rehearsals of all nine countries which drew second half of the second semi final - including the two current favourites to win! Join us all day on our YouTube channel, website & other social media for the latest updates and video content.

Image Credit: Edvina Meta (Eurovision.tv)

The next country to take their place on the Eurovision stage was Albania. The first song to be chosen this year, the amazing Jonida Maliqi will be singing 'Ktheju tokës' on the Eurovision stage. Albania had a tough time in 2016 and 2017, failing to qualify, however last year Eugent Bushpepa took the nation back to the grand final, placing 11th. Albania commonly send powerful vocalists and Jonida is no exception to that rule.

Jonida launched her music career back in 1999 at the age of 16, and has seen a lot of success over the past 20 years. This includes six awards at Kënga Magjike and she was also crowned the winner in 2008. Since then she has many TV credits and even co-hosted the fourth season of Dancing With The Stars Albania, and featured as a judge on The Voice of Albania. The end of her music video featured 'To be continued at Eurovision' - making us very excited to see how they complete the video story on stage!

Image Credit: Thomas Hanses (Eurovision.tv)

ALBANIA - FIRST REHEARSAL

Jonida's vocals are some of the best this year - just incredible! She's wearing a long black dress with really exquisite golden patterns. The staging is dark but with very deep reds and the stage being lit up golden. Continuing from the music video, there's also fire in the background.

The camera has a lot of sweeping shots and on the first run through there was a giant black eagle (think Albanian flag) featured in the background that swooped across the stage. (Edit: Note that the eagle was cut from the second and third run-throughs.) The whole stage show is really about Jonida here - the colours compliment her perfectly and she has a huge amount of stage presence letting her impressive vocals do the talking for her.