[LMBTO] It's the Mr & Mrs TEO show - Eurovision time in Belarus...

It's the start of the National Final season so it must be Eurofest, the Belarusian path to a possible lower half of the right hand side of the scoreboard on Final night!  Their show is a little bit later this year but it was all the same format - the major change up front was having a former Eurovision contestant being one of the hosts.  TEO was the male half of the pair, accompanying the ever-present and now totally loved up Olga Ryzhikova (otherwise now known as Mrs TEO), both holding hands, getting up close with each other and even singing a duet.  The host for the last two Eurofest was totally out of the picture - poor Denis, this was the only time he was in possession of a heart in Olga's presence:
Another forgotten soul appeared on screen, some guy who also sung for his nation but wasn't as successful as TEO:
After all the introductions and the TEO's showing how much they loved each other, we got into the nitty-gritty of the National Final selection itself.  One thing of note - TVR have obviously been watching the 'postcards' from past Eurovisions and decided to give it a go designing some technical ones.  They were all very good, each artist undertaking some task to get the number in the running order they were singing at - not sure how comfortable IVAN was making the number 7 though:
Ten songs to work through, no juries this year, just televoting - it all suggested a quick show, not many interval acts or adverts neither.  Give the standard of the entries this year (Belarus Auditions), all of that was a blessing to the Eurovision stalwart!

First up, Alexey Gross got us going:


First of all, if your surname is Gross, it's best not to have it written on its own anywhere on set when you have viewers from the UK watching!  It was also very strange to just have a view of his head for the first thirty seconds of the song - I was starting to think we were watching 'Molly Sterling part 2'.  Despite that, this was all sung extremely well, loads of emotion, building into a rousing chorus and a mid-song crescendo.  'Flame' was all a bit slow paced but I was convinced that this would be challenging for the win as it had a Eurovision feel - I had forgotten that my views didn't tend to match those of the Belarusian public.  7.5


Next was a lady called Sasha:


The 'street urchin' look really only worked for Gilbert O'Sullivan and that was almost forty years ago - the bizarre hand gestures didn't really work either for me.  Her vocals were poor to start, getting slightly better as she changed into her 'evening wear' but it was all very mediocre, with minimal staging - the curse of being number 2 in the running order could not be blamed for this mess.  5.0


Could Valeria pick the show up again?


Maybe the producers were trying to get the poor entries out of the way?  Valeria is stunning to look at and connected well with the camera but she had this very, very annoying way of ending each line vocally, a bit like she was impersonating Dido (and I really don't like Dido).  Her voice wasn't great and her breathing whilst singing was all over the place, detracting from the lyrics.  She sounded a bit better during the high tempo part of the song but not much - for me, she was worse than Sasha!  At this rate, Mr & Mrs TEO should have entered... 4.0


And now onto the funniest pronunciation award for the evening - it's Radiovolna:


A 'raaaadiowaaave'?  The dodgy wording apart, the song itself had a good rhythm and beat, the lead singer could sing and it sounded good.  The lyrics are a bit meaningless and it was all a bit repetitive but his connection with the viewer and the upbeat nature of the entry made me think this could be there or thereabouts at the end...or not!  7.0


Now these guys impressed me at the audition stage, THE EM:



The starting on the floor is getting so old hat now and surely it's been already trademarked by Belgium?  Lawyers for Loïc Nottet and Adil take note!  They are obviously a little odd looking but there was huge amounts of emotion in this, it was sung well with the twist being a heartfelt ballad between two guys.  Unfortunately as it went on, this entry deteriorated into  how two drunk guys at a karaoke must appear when trying to belt out their favourite love song - enjoyable if strange.  7.0


Next up was the only Belarusian language entry of the night, sung by NAVI:


The Belarusian Head of Delegation said that he'd give priority to native language entries this year - he got ONE in the National Final.  Nice try, I suppose.  It all sounded a little bit like Malta's Firelight, nice and pleasant with loads of whoops - her vocals were great, his a little shaky.  The chemistry between them worked well but the song itself all went around in circles and the whooping really got tedious at the end.  At least they gave it a go and tried to get the comatose audience involved.  6.0


From Belarus folk to a bit of soft rock - IVAN:


Was this the Belarusian attempt at a 'Heroes' style animated show?  This was one of the highlights of the night for me - IVAN has an obviously distinctive singing style but it suited the music and gave a nice build-up throughout the song.  A bit of soft rock never goes amiss and the lyrics at least told a story and gave the listener a journey to the end.  Chorus memorable, good connection with the crowd and the viewers and he even hit his high notes at the end.  If he had the voice of Meatloaf, I could have seen this as a possible surprise sleeper in Stockholm but the power of the vocals were more 'Chad Kroeger' lite.  Still the best of the night and totally out of the blue for me - this didn't even register when I watched the auditions.  8.0


From the highpoint of the evening, it all went downhill from then on - Anastasia:


Anastasia definitely has one powerful voice but she can't really control it!  The verse kept my attention but then the chorus kicked in and I felt a sharp pain in my ears.  Her vocals were all over the place and it only got worse.  'Pray For Love'?  I was praying for the end of the song.  5.5


The penultimate entry by Kirill Ermakov had a lots of fans thinking it had 'Eurovision' stamped all over it:


No, I couldn't see why.  Admittedly, all the basic components are there - good looking guy, a bit of a dance routine, a nice tempo to the music, an easy to remember chorus, sure.  The downside is that he was vocally erratic throughout, bum notes aplenty and the staging became all a bit naff.  What could have been a dead cert for Eurovision was spoilt by the lack of an enjoyable song sung live.  6.0


And to finish the evening, it wouldn't be the Belarus NF without Napoli:


Always one for amazingly outlandish costumes, the quality of their singing is what disappoints me year after year.  This was the best I have heard from them, the lead singer actually hitting most of the notes and it being quite listenable for most of the entry.  The song probably would have worked better in a musical to be honest and her vocal range and ability to sing English was challenged at times here.  Running out of steam at the end, this reverted to the Napoli of old - one to make up the numbers for me.  5.5


As per usual, Eurofest never really seems to hit the heights of other National Finals and all of this year's entries would probably not make the televised stages of most of the Scandinavian shows.  For me, there were only two entries that might stand a chance in Stockholm - Alexey Gross and IVAN.  The unknown quantity this year is that there were no jurors to vote, only the great Belarusian public.  From what I remember from the past, I felt that IVAN might stand a chance of winning due to Belarus liking their rock bands and singers - I also remembered that Napoli were a public favourite, so I couldn't really predict the winner here.

As there were only televotes to count, there were only four interval artists this year, the most recognisable of which was a certain blonde who will probably be on every Eurofest for the foreseeable future:
I wonder what an Alyona-TEO duet would sound like?  And would Olga let him sing with another woman?

Of course, not only were we watching Belarus choose their Eurovision entrant, we were also waiting to see who would win this wonderful trophy:
Nice bit of glass blowing but the same as last year (at least) - maybe a different style for 2017?

Having a public SMS vote alone did speed things up a lot - no jurors to pontificate and flirt with Olga this year!  Everyone was waiting on stage for the results - as the voting progressed, it was obvious that it was between soft rock (IVAN) and musical theatre (Napoli).  In the end, I am pleased to say that Nickelback-lite won the day:
It did seem that the TVR producers were trying to make the voting more exciting by putting Napoli well out in front for quite a while and then IVAN caught up and pulled ahead, just as everyone was assembled for the result.

No time for celebrating, he was straight into his reprise and I was pleased to see that the other artists were getting into the mood of the song, maybe not as much as when TEO won but definitely more so than last year with poor Uzari and Maimuna:



And at least he seems excited and proud to be representing his country at Eurovision:



IVAN was the best on the night by far - the best vocal technique and sound, a solid performance with some nice backing graphics.  The intro and chorus are the stand out points of this entry and his voice is definitely distinctive.  As for how well Belarus will do at Eurovision?  This might have been the best song in Eurofest but I think that 'Help You Fly' in its current form would need amazing staging and backdrop to keep the viewing public remembering this one through the longer SFs this year in Stockholm.  If his voice was more powerful or the song itself had any sort of high point to it (apart from his hitting the top notes at the end) then his vocals would be enough to get Belarus back in the Eurovision Final.  As it is, I would very much doubt that we will hear this more than once in May - soft rock isn't a very popular genre either.