Being a video reveal there not much to give me sense of their stage show but having gone through the Georgian Idol process we know that this style of song is what they do and that slightly unhinged rock style is why he won the show. The video is in back and white which gives the video quite a raw feel and it would not feel out of place to have this replicated. He's dressed very casually throughout and I don't expect him to change this at all. I think that his pure demeanour will stand out before a not has even been hit.
There are a couple of different settings during the video. Mainly the song is set in a recording studio where Tornike and his backing singers and musicians are recording their bits of song. You also see them chilling out between takes as well as seeing the people producing the track offering encouragement and twiddling the all important knobs. There are also extended section shot inside of a car where he is also singing the song. During the video there are lots of repeated shots such as Tornike singing with his mouth wide open and lots of close up guitar shots. Shots like the ultra slowed down plucking of a string would fit this perfectly as a backdrop perhaps.
The song has a very repetitive structure which might sound boring to some but be intriguing to others. After a jangly, warbling guitar not Tornike starts on verse 1. His voice is quite tempered and fragile and very deliberate in his pronunciation. Each line is very similar at the start but has a different ending which makes it rather easy to remember and get involved with. He goes straight into verse two which has a very similar format but this time her is really aggressively singing, some may say shouting, the words which is his signature style. Then follows the 'chorus' which brings in the backing singers. Even though their singing tones are different the blend of voices just works. What is also interesting is that the nationalities talked about in the verses then marry up with the languages in the chorus. We then have the second verse which again adds different nationalities to the first verse but is much shorter. Then follows another chorus with more languages! After the final "I love you" the music gets sucked away to a finish.
This is such an individual entry and it is so nice to see Georgia coming back to the weird side that we know so well. This is out and out the alternative/rock track of the year and it is pretty unlikely to be out done, so from that perspective this song has cornered that particular market. Of course there is a precedent for rock tracks at eurovision, in particular from Finland, Czech Republic and Hungary, and although not all of them have been successful, they certainly linger in the memory.
I think the fact that a contestant like Tornike went through this competition AND that the Georgian public took to him the way they did has to be applauded. I could have been quite easy to rein him back in a little and fit him into something a bit more commercial. However if I had one criticism it would be that I almost which they had pushed it even harder with more jarring changes in direction or maybe some switches of backing track. As much as I think this needs to qualify (and deserve to) I regrettably think it won't, probably more due to lack of support from juries than televoters. If you can vote for this in semi 2 (which we can in the UK) send this a teletove it's way and make Eurovision weird again!
Artist - Tornike Kipiani
Song - Take me as I am
Composers - Aleko Berdzenishvili, Tornike Kipiani
Lyricists - Aleko Berdzenishvili, Tornike Kipiani
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