Eurofest, the Belarusian national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 just finished, where the 15th Eurovision entrant for Belarus was selected – Alekseev with the song “Forever”.
10 songs competed in the final of Eurofest, following the withdrawal of Sofi Lapina. The show was hosted by Teo (who represented Belarus in the Eurovision Song Contest 2014) and Olga Ryzhikova. The show started with Naviband, as they were the last year’s winner of Eurofest with “Historiya majho zyccia”.
Adagio
Adagio is a four member band, and the song started with a close-up of one of the singers. The start of it was slow, but as the song went on the vocals of the guys were complimenting each other very well.
Alekseev
Second on stage was Alekseev, who was also the biggest favorite. He had LED lights on him, which were flashing periodically. The backdrop was changing from clouds to rain and flashings, and he gave a rather decent performance.
Shuma
Quite an abstract backdrop for this song, as we can see some sort of red and white cogs. The singer was wearing some sort of metal on her face, with a silver and gold dress, and the whole thing looked rather futuristic. And she also gave a very good performance vocally as well.
Napoli
Olga (Napoli) starts the song with a blindfold on, which is later removed, and she was joined by two backing singers on stage. The backdrop was changing between blue, black and pink, while Olga was wearing a red dress. Vocally she was very good.
Anastasiya Malashkevich
Anastasiya was using a red LED floor with purple tubes behind. She was wearing a red dress, and some really large glasses. She gave a good vocal performance, but it still wasn’t that impressive.
Gunesh
Gunesh’s performance started with a ticking clock. The backdrop was changing between blue and pink, while Gunesh was wearing what looks like a large silver overcoat. She was vocally very good, and this was the first song to get a massive cheer in the audience.
Radiovolna
The lead singer starts the song by singing on the floor in a white suit and white hat, and looking rather sad. We could see some rather abstract purple visuals in the backdrop. And this song actually ended up with two cheers from the audience during the song!
Alen Hit
Two backing dancers are joining Alen on stage. He is wearing what looks like a black tracksuit with white in the centre. The song gets a little bit repetitive, and Alen’s vocals are not that strong.
Lexy
We start with a black rectangle on stage, slowly turning to a dark purple. Someone from behind has just placed the rectangle on the ground, and Lexy is standing in front of it. Lexy isn’t really the best singer, one must have noticed.
Kirill Good
This sounds quite on trend at the moment. Kirill has two backing singers, and the whole thing just screams Justin Timberlake. His voice is good, the song is well put together as well, and it doesn’t become repetitive as various other ones did.
Once all the artists have performed their songs, Naviband were back on stage as part of the interval, as well as Viola. After the intervals, all 10 finalists came back on stage, and the hosts announced the winner – Alekseev, and he won both the televoting and the jury votes as well.
Alekseev will thus go on to represent Belarus in Eurovision 2018 in Lisbon with the song “Forever”. Give it a listen here:
