The duo of VAL, singer Valerie and instrumentalist Vlad, are joined by a male dancer. They are all dressed smartly in black and Valerie is sporting a rather fetching Amii Stewart-esque disco hairpiece. Behind them the backdrop is ever changing, sometimes to just plain colours, sometimes to abstract blobs and patterns and sometimes images of hands in different positions. This is certainly something that will need to be looked into before May but provides a good contrast to the plain costumes. At the end there are some pryo displays which also help cue the song's finish.
The three of them on stage complete quite an intricate stage routine involving lots of different parts. Vlad, interestingly, plays the keyboard for most of the song but his instrument is on casters so can walk and play at the same time. At the end he switches instruments and can been seen playing an electric guitar It's very novel, if not distracting, but does also keep him part of the performance - he also does backing vocals too! Valerie and the backing dancer do some simple choreography together during the verses and there is a short repetitive armography sequence in the instrumental part. During the last chorus the dancer even does a death drop!
The song starts with a very subdued, quite muted piano. We have two verses with the second verse adding in a slow beat. We then have two versions of the chorus the first quite breathy and low, the second sung full out and with power. This is followed by an instrumental, with a short refrain intertwined within and this is also where the armography comes in. We then have another 2 verses but before going into the two choruses we go back into the instrumental bit. The whole thing finishes with another dose of the instrumental which gets us just short of the 3 minute barrier.
This is a really nice easy to listen and groove to bop. It has a good mix of beats and styles without coming across as overdoing it. Even the language comes across as quite nice to listen to ad the Eastern European language really doesn't jar with a quite western if not slightly Reggaeton style. The song itself has a similar style to Major Lazer's "lean on" which was a big hit. As far as the stage show, they will need backing singers and I think the whole show needs to be bigger. Maybe get some dancers who can sing because more people doing the hand jive in the instrumental will give it another visual hook. They can probably think over their outfits and if we really need the hostess trolley keyboard - would one with a shoulder strap no suffice? I quite like the abstract background because it will make people think about eh sounds of the language rather than try to interpret some kind of story.
I hope the voters, jury and televoters, see how modern and radio friendly this is and can hear past the Belarusian language and can get into the groove of the song. Hopefully they won't fiddle to much with the track but hone down the craft of the stage show. I would love to see this qualify and I could actually see this as a great show opener for semi 1 which might not be a bad shout for them!
Artist - VAL
Song - Da vidna (Until the dawn)
Composers - Valeryja Hrybusava, Mikita Najdzionaŭ, Uladzislaŭ Paškievič
Lyricists - Valeryja Hrybusava, Mikita Najdzionaŭ, Uladzislaŭ Paškievič
No comments:
Post a Comment