Cypriot Eurovision heat stages decide our tune…
And the winner is…
John Karayiannis… One Thing I Should Have Done…
Cyprus decides our tune with the Cypriot national final of the Eurovision Song Project airing on Sunday 1st February and all this week Cypriots have been voting for their favourite song after weekly auditions and Eurochallenge semi-finals, which started in early December. I guess if you are twitter savvy by using hash-tag #eurovisionCY this will mean something to you…
Back after a year’s hiatus, the new format had taken 55 entries to the open audition and our feature on lgr.co.uk extracted much attention from British Cypriot singers/song-writing and it goes without saying they can be proud of doing well in the quest for our tune…
Eurovision whips up our patriotic instinct and huge numbers of you support our song, so you will be pleased to know Cyprus have drawn the second semi-final on May 21st (diary ”note”) with us in the UK voting, final takes place on 23rd May at the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna with our entry, aims to reach that far…
This reviewer believes we have potential qualifiers and every song is really good in 2015…
Cypriot Top 6 finalists… who wins… you decide…
My brief review looks to the Top 6 finalists…
Hovig ‘Stone in a river‘ Hovig’s honest pop ballad is on point with the ”message” and refrain goes something like this… Why is everyone just a stone in the river, drifting by like a blind believer does anybody care to feel with his soul… flawless vocal and really liked the concept of what it has to say… good effort.
Doody ‘Magic‘ aka Stefanos Christoforou Pop track with catchy playful chorus and a more mid-tempo style, it’s all about magic and the last part with a little rap by Doody is good enough to break-up the chorus and show something of his identity as a young artist. He will hope to emulate his big bro Constantinos Christoforou who writes the music with lyrics by Zenon Zindilis has a long history with Cypriot Eurovision…
Panagiotis Koufogiannis ‘Without your love‘ Lovely piano introducing Panagioti he sings the ballad really well with sincerity/honesty… catchy hook is good enough on first listening and seems memorable… The final mix of the song has an epic feel with small orchestra strings… girls on cellos and violins adding to emotion and progressive way it builds… feels like a safe qualifier.
Song-writing by Nasos Lambrianides of ‘Life looks better in spring’ fame his Cyprus tune achieved qualifying in 2010…
Minus One ‘Shine‘ have good solid rock tune and credible in its genre with melody hooks and very nice verses… The usual band-set has their touch of baglamadaki in the break-down adding the Greek Cypriot feel to the tune. These boys are also called Marianne’s Wish has a large Cypriot fan-base and formed in 2009, going strong for five years… good energy on stage with lead vocal off Francois Micheletto, George Solonos (guitars, vocals), Constantinos Amerikanos (guitars, vocals) Antonis Loizides (bass), Chris Ioannides (drums)
John Karayiannis ‘One thing I should have done‘ Our Limassol artist, 21 years-old has the signature look of his black, thick-framed spectacles… simple acoustic ballad with good melody… modern… honest and understated with touch of acapella shows off John’s crisp vocal and delivers one of the moments in the song penned by Mike Connaris of Mcasso Music in Great Marlborough Street…
Mike gave Cyprus their equal best ever Top 5th result, for his song Lisa Andreas ‘Stronger Every Minute’ in 2004 writing himself into Cypriot folklore…
Nearxos Evangelou featuring with Charis Savva ‘Deila den agapo‘ Nearxos (21) and Charis (16) has intense chemistry, really nice, Greek-French mix with compatible voices and much feeling and emoting which has distinctive charm to it. In the first audition for me… sikostike i trixa mou we say in Greek or goose-bumps moment… it’s classic ballad with a modern hint with their young personality, slow start, erupts at 1 minute and 30 seconds in to Cypriot style dramatic power vocal… Nearxos is a singer/song-writer from Limassol and Charis represents Larnaca.
The judges with us for the whole process Alex Panayi, Elena Patroklou, Despina Olympiou, Tasos Tryfonos will be joined by Bruno Berberes (the former French Head of Delegation and executive producer of The Voice France) and Nicola Caligiore (of Italy’s public state broadcaster RAI). Previously in the Eurochallenge semis was two other jurors Christer Björkman and Dimitris Kontopoulos deciding our six…
The public has 50% voting also judges 50% and will go on to select our winning song…
Host is the gorgeous Antri Karantoni she was there back-stage with all of the acts’ support and has navigated the events so far…
The Eurovision Song Project Grand Final airs on Sunday 1st February at 19:30 GMT.
