Russia’s Sergey Lazarev is ready to move mountains at Eurovision — and it looks like he’s ready to climb them too! The Eurovision front-runner performs a complicated climbing series in front of his LED screen. It’s very dark and during his first run-through he missed a jump as he climbed across the screen. A true showman who understands the meaning of perseverance, he took a short break, picked himself up and got back into action.
The number starts with a close up of his face in total darkness. Then he stands before an LED screen and sprouts black wings. The darkness and interaction with the wall give us shades of Måns Zelmerlöw and Greta Salome, while the wings smack of Charlotte Perrelli’s staging for “The Girl” (minus all the pink).
But this ups the ante. It’s not simple at all — as evidenced by the fall as he somehow climbs pillars jutting out of the LED wall. At many points he invokes the music video. He lays down and seems to float in space. He stands on a pillar as the ground collapses around him. He seems to ride an iceberg floating in space. And at the end he stands on top of a massive box before an LED sun. Surely for some fans the bright ending with the sun rising reflects his rising chance of winning.
His backing dancers appear only briefly, performing the choreography we’ve grown familiar with during the Eurovision 2016 promotional season. Their absence adds lift, but there disappearance reminds us this is all about Sergey.
As for the vocals you can’t fault him — he was totally on point. One of his backing vocalists, however, seemed a tad loud. The female voice needs to be muted a tad so Sergey can fully shine.
Russia: First rehearsal at Eurovision 2016
Sergey Lazarev’s “You Are the Only One”: Reviews and Reactions
Read all of our Eurovision rehearsal reviews
Photo: Eurovision.tv (EBU)
I, for one, don’t like the way it sounds different to the studio version. That one’s much better. I think Russia has ended up leaving the winner’s place open to others.
I get lost into this iceberg thing and scattered rocks all around…it’s just too many distractions that I can’t get a clear message from this song.
Also too much movement. Lots of excitement that don’t get you nowhere.
Is this supposed to be a lovestory song or what it is? So what’s the point of all this unnecessary information that may belong to geology?
Whatever…
So a dated song with a busy stage and everyone is fan walking over it?
This is why I don’t follow Eurovision as much as a few years ago.
If the UK or Germany sent this song everyone would hate it but because it’s Russia.
I hope he completely messes up his semi final performance and gets licked out in the semi 🙂
But that won’t happen.
Oh Oxyk.. Oxana, whatever fits you, you are so hilarious. :^) I know you talk hate all the time but most people actually use their face cheeks to paint stuff on.. but I guess that hardly makes a difference for you huh?
@Daan,
” think I will paint a Dutch and a Russian and Czech flag on my cheeks when I visit the Semi finals”
are you going to paint Russian flag on your butt, or you have extra cheek for this purpose? 🙂
Eugene
What’s your prediction for the final?
The winner! Great job Russia. =] Damn, People comparing this to Mans. lmao. Mans could only dream of this. This is amazing and got me WOW the whole time. Great job Russia, you deserve the win. Moscow 2017!
And Sergey is such a hunk. Such a nice guy. Loved his Meet and greet… My parents keep pushing me to bring him home as their son in law lmao.. I think I will paint a Dutch and a Russian and Czech flag on my cheeks when I visit the Semi finals and Finals this year.
@EugeneESCUK
Wow staging is not necessarily as important as you posit. Germany 2010 had an incredibly simplistic staging, and won quite comfortably, and the same can be said for Azerbaijan 2011. Even Austria 2014 had a pretty simple staging. Imo it’s only really the Swedish winners and Norway 2009 (purely for the folk dancing) that had ‘wow’ staging in the last ten years.
Czech Republic will stand out if the staging is simple after Russia being so over the top that it might cause viewers to not enjoy it.
I just hate how people react to all perfomances every year. You want me to believe that no one of international artists use LED because they did it other ones in the past? How stupid to think like that. LED is something very 2010s so yes is we saw it back we seen it now and we are going to see them in the future believe me!
“A LED iceberg”, oh god… This thing is going to be so tacky I wouldn’t be surprised if they had fire-breathing lions and anacondas around their necks.
I hope juries will do their job… If Sergey win, eurovision will never be like before. For sure it became a performance contest. But the performance has to be based on the song. It’s not the case of Serguey’s stage performance today.
Amazing, but emotionless.
@Eugene: Of course there is a tendency, but we’ve never seen something like Russia does this year. If they win, it would make the use of such technology raise extremely.
All this babble is pointless until we see the whole picture on tv. Grab some beer & order pizza. It’s gonna be spectacular.
This is no doubt spectacular and well planned, I really like it.
On the other hand though, it feels like they’re trying too hard. There’s so much going on and some parts are a clear Mans rip-off, say what you want.
I still think this can win, but I’m afraid that if it does, next year everybody will try something like this instead of concentrating on the actual song, making Eurovision 2017 a visual/performance contest…
a screen? 🙂 I guess they got it second hand from Ani Lorak 🙂 can you recall her final act, when at the end of song she appears on the top of screen? to bad Lazarev can’t have polaroid effect cadres with his butt like Ani Lorak did, he have to climb some rubbish instead 🙂
there’s already his full rehearsal video on youtube, and you can check it upon video of Ani Lorak. have fun 🙂
Nothing special.just like Hero..im not a big fan..Hope Armenia will win
It’s a sign of changing times. The stages just can’t be the only thing that has a backdrop. Technically Mans could’ve just used the LED screen the 2015 stage already had but he didn’t because it didn’t fit his own vision of how he wanted it to be. Is that bad? No. So why is it bad for Sergey or Greta to also use and addition LED screen to project their own vision of what they want their staging to look like? Is Mans the only person who is ever allowed to have high-tec staging now, and anything after that… Read more »
I don’t care if he somehow “stole” this from Mans or Greta because compared to them, their’s is nothing. This is visually amazing and as long as he doesn’t slip (and hopefully performs in a higher key), then i can’t see Russia losing
Hmm, the performance won’t be as cheesy as some expected (no dance group?), Russia decided to follow Mans’ footsteps, and went high-tech. I don’t know if it’s a good idea. But it looks like Eurovision is going in this direction: they will look like music videos performed live, rather than pure live music on the tage. Entries with less advanced technology might have little chance to win Eurovision in the future?…
You know you have a BS emotionless song when you have to do all these gimmicks.
I knew many of them would fall in the Sweden’s 2015 trap, but I wasn’t expecting Russia to be one of them. Keep the mappings coming.
The winner will offer something different, that’s for sure.
For those who say that his stage is a copy of heroes this is 100 times better than heroes….?
Amazing! TOP-1!
His voice disaster … his idea of the screen like Mans last year. Try to impress
Viewers at home are gonna LOVE it
well I like it.
Sorry, but it was lots of things for me..
Deserved a Top.5 place but in a bottom side. I’m a hardcore Eurovision fan and i’ve never seen such an overrated song like this one!
(sorry for my English) xD
I have to say that he and his team is trying too hard on this. Make basic improvisations and you’d do well with the staging. *facepalm*
well it’s awful, the wings are so cliche, and overused last year with Amber and the year before by Conchita lol
sorry a non qualifier for me
I have just seen the whole performance… where to start, it is Mans + Perrelli + Greta Salome + Dmitry Koldun + Ani lorak + Sakis Rouvas + 1000 of more eurovision cliches… did they forget anything? I dont’ think so….
it is so dated, unoriginal and baroque, that doesn’t deserve even a top 10… they should just play the videoclip and let sergey sing in the background, it would be the same
very disapointed by russia this year, they could have prepared something new, original, but they were just lazy
His staging is nothing ground-breaking, really.
His staging is nothing gound-breaking, really.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrB5QbDIuPQ
Enjoy the rehearsal from the front row.
Song is so dated .. Deserves a top 5 for the effort and production value but not much else ..
So his song belongs to 2007 but his performance is futuristic? Interesting….Can achieve top 3 but not without a struggle.
https://m.vk.com/video-17978924_456239347?list=d946726beeb2b02353&from=wall-17978924_523698
FULL-Version – SUPER!!!!!!!!!!!!
So apart from song will be and the staging boring??
I`m waiting for video of Sergey`s performance but your description is very exciting:) Sergey is a perfect vocalist so he sings so beautiful 🙂 Sergey is my favourite. Good luck from Poland;)
not impressed…
Mans already did something similar last year, but way more original
this looks like an over-the-top mess
I agree with Hi , its a song contest not make a fool of yourself contest , if it was 12 points to Russia ha ha
Slow Down, brother…
Lazarev’s slip video https://glavnews.org/articles/Sergei_Lazarev_upal_s_dekoratsyy_na_pervoi_repetytsyy_nomera_k_Evrovydenyiu-1462202230053
For me best rehearsals today
Armenia, The Netherlands, Greece
Good Russia, Hungary, Moldova
Not good Croatia, San Marino , Finland
Russia are NOT gonna win this year. Its a bad song and a bad singer. If he going to the final, he should be glad.
Armenia is gonna beat Russia! The game becomes more and more interesting. Look at the bookies odds ???????????????? . THIS IS THE REAL COMPETITION! SO EXCITED!
this was so impressive!!!! Winner.
Haters gonna hate though… Amir flop!
Is he trying to kill himself before the contest ?