AZERBAIJAN

The Azeri Final was held on March 14th, hosted by Leila Guliyeva & Konul Arifkizi. Before the final there were 8 heats held at the Ictimai TV Studios in Baku where the contestants sang a range of songs through the week before the winner was determined by SMS voting (50%) and an "expert" jury (50%). In the final though, with winner was chosen by jury vote alone. The ticket to Malmo was given to Farid Mammadov singing the song "Hold me".

Farid is atop a small platform for most of the song. He is flanked by 4 backing singers who spend most of their time in the shadows unseen apart from a brief cross over. During the middle part of the song he is accosted by a female dancer who then runs off. At the start of the song the lighting is almost black, slowly lights up to a blue (seemingly this years National finals colour) then ends with a pinky-red diamond effect in the background and a flash of fireworks.

The song is a fairly standard ballad. The song and performance are pretty standard stuff and not exciting in the least. There is little movement or engagement towards the audience in the room or the audience at home. Unfortunately Farid's English accent and pronunciation is appalling and the verses turn into mumbling wrecks only to be awoken by the shouts of "Hold me, just unfold me!" .

So the song and performance are awful, however it will probably qualify. Although I think this is a poor song, it will get enough votes. The Turkish Diaspora vote my well be enough to get it through to Saturday night, especially as this year there is no Turkey to vote for. If he performs as badly as he did in the national final though, juries will not appreciate this performance at all. This is a middle runner, but nowhere near a winner,

Artist - Farid Mammadov

Song - Hold Me
Music - Dimitris Kontopoulos
Lyrics - John Ballard, Ralph Charlie