It is still the second day of the lead up to the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest and there are a host of countries which are taking to the stage in Baku, Azerbaijan for their very first rehearsal noting that today marks the end of the first semi-final leaving the acts in the second semi-final to take the role tomorrow and the following day. The second rehearsals are scheduled to commence on Thursday morning therefore, it will be quite an interesting set of days indeed. In the meantime, apart from the performances which are being re-worked to fit into the staging put forth by the European Broadcasting Union, the escflashmalta.com team of editors is excruciatingly busy taking images, reporting and also interviewing acts exclusively. In fact, once more, huge thanks to Juergen Boernig from The Netherlands and his team of people, Garrett Mulhall from Ireland and also Šira Carolyn Bezalel from Croatia who are giving us the exclusive content. Nevertheless, huge thanks to all of the escXtra team led by Luke Fisher from the United Kingdom who are doing a splendid job and giving us their support as well.

It seems that flying over between press conferences, and interviews, Juergen and his team have managed to share with us some of their exclusive content including interviews with none other than the Israeli group at this years' Eurovision Song Contest who just happen to be Izabo and also with the composer of the San Marino entry who is Ralph Siegel, one of the most popular songwriters at the Eurovision Song Contest who can definitely be coined to be a veteran at this point in time. The Israeli group were somewhat disappointed with the backdrop of their rehearsal this morning and one could expect a lot of changes come the second rehearsal which is scheduled for later in the week actually and they were so frustrated that they cancelled their very own press conference but still did not cancel the meetings they had with the press meaning that our team was still lucky to get the interview in and in fact, Lilian Brunell and Juergen Boernig spoke to the group about the lead up to the competition and also their first rehearsal which you can see below.

The second interview of the day was one which actually has not yet been covered by anyone. Ralph Siegel has been in the business for a very long time and many people remember that he is actually a winner of the Eurovision Song Contest with the track Ein Bischen Frieden which he wrote for Nicole way back in 1982 which just happens to be thirty years ago this year. The song came into the mind of the songwriter just ten years after his first experience at the music competition and in fact, Lilian Brunell focused a lot on the history of the individual before then turning around the attention on the song for San Marino which he co-wrote with his typical writing partner. The song has received a lot of acclaim mostly negative but nevertheless, publicity which can be somewhat acknowledged in the best possible way. Many people have said that i might actually qualify because it is a hot mess and it might do well with the tele-voters. Many people are writing it off with the juries but I think San Marino know their tactics in that department actually. You can view the interview just below as well through our YouTube account.