Eurovision 2018 Rehearsals: Armenia brings Stonehenge to the stage for Qami

 Benny RoystonMonday

30 Apr 2018 4:11 pm        

Armenia’s Sevak turned in a powerful first rehearsal (Picture: Andres Putting)

Sevak Khanagyan has performed Qami in his first rehearsal at the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest and British viewers might raise an eyebrow or two. The staging looks like Stonehenge.

This is an underrated song that does look good on camera. The stage starts of darkly lit, but again the lights bring it to life. There are swaying spotlights and yet more stage lighting from the giant lighting rigs but the focus is very much on Sevak.

Wearing a dark great jumper and trousers with a full-length cardigan, he’s going to do well to avoid breaking a sweat with temperatures in Lisbon expected to soar next week. This might explain why he’s using a wind machine without the hair or outfit for it.

Actually, Qami means wind in Armenian and the whole song is a tribute to wind: The winds are silent, the winds are deaf, when the soul is filled with emptiness, loneliness becomes my friend. 

The vocal is gravelly and on point, it’s well sung from start to finish and there’s plenty of passion. That conquers the language barrier as he performs the song in Armenian. Armenia has never won the Eurovision Song Contest. Their best result since they started competing in 2006 came in 2008 when Sirusho took fourth place with Qele Qele.

They came fourth again with Aram MP3’s Not Alone in 2014 and have only failed to reach the final once. Armenia will be song number sixteen in the first Eurovision Song Contest on Tuesday 8 May. The show will be broadcast live on BBC Four with Rylan Clark-Neal and Scott Mills commentating. The United Kingdom will vote on the show.