Eurovision national selection tour finalists slected in Belarus
Eurovision-2019/Euroradio
The Belarusian State Broadcasting Company has announced the finalists of the national selection tour of Eurovision-2019. 10 finalists have been selected out of 113 applicants: Zena, Michael Soul, Napoli, Aura, Eva Kogan, Alyona Harbachova, KeiSi, Imagbe Emmanuel Imagosakua, PROvokatsyya and Sebastian Roos.
The audition was organized in Minsk on February 4, 2019. More than 100 singers wanted to participate in the selection tour but not all of them arrived at Makayonka Street, 9. Naturally, it was good news since the jury members did not have to ask anyone to stop thus offending them and the show was over at about 5 p.m. – the audience breathed with relief.
This year’s selection tour was the same as the previous five tours. Only Gyunesh, Anastasiya Malashkevich and Zhanet were missing. Yet, there were plenty of girls in high heels and cosmic dresses with pieces of glass attached to them, thin rappers signing something like “no-fool”, Vital Varanko without Raketa and balalaika but with Soroka from “Dom-2” and the honoured freak of national selection tours – Viktar Lupasin (his new song was “Ride the bicycle and sing”). Ukrainian Paulo was Viktar’s rival this time – despite having no phone and access to the Internet he reached the Belarusian State Broadcasting Company and brought 26 (!!!) variants of his song. Tatstsyana Vaitovich from Navahrudak brought two songs – about a broken heart and home towns (she sang the latter together with presenter Yury Yaroshyk).
Representatives of 15 other countries made the Belarusian selection tour more appealing. Carlos Costa from Portugal was the highlight of the show (because of his dances, great hair and figure). Cheerful British duet Daz & Sampson Nona were also good (it was a positive greeting from the past). Everyone was waiting for ‘the dark horse” Mariah Gregory. She appeared on stage in a black hood but did not manage to take it off beautifully. Also, Mariah used recorded backing vocal which was against the contest rules.
Who did we like? Micheal Soul: he does not like the fact that Belarus has been unable to win for so many years and he is ready to win.
Napoli: Volha Shymanskaya has taken part in the selection tour six times. Instead of using a song written by foreign composers, she has chosen a song composed by young Belarusian Alyaksandra Tkach. KeiSi was stylish. Zena was appealing to the youth. Tanya Haroshka made use of the European style, Syarhei Matsiyuk was almost like Ed Sheeran, Ramirezz was funny and Imagbe Emanuel Imagosakua sounded strong.
