From the moment Russia announced that Sergey Lazarev would sing at Eurovision, the country has been one of the hot favourites to win the contest. Whilst “You Are The Only One” may be loved by many Eurovision fans (just look at our Semi Final One poll), there were naysayers who said Sergey wouldn’t be able to deliver the song live. Well guess what? Sergey just blew it up at his concert in Kursk the other night, delighting the audience with the first live performance of his Eurovision song.

Watch: Sergey Lazarev performs “You Are The Only One” live

https://youtu.be/pzf85eT1Yl4

Sergey delivers a perfect vocal performance and adds some spice with well-trained choreography. Y’all, that does not look easy! Sergey also doesn’t seem afraid to improvise vocally, but there’s still plenty of power in his voice. It’s fair to say that it’s a big contrast to Frans, his nearest rival as it stands for the Eurovision title.

The dancers also create an energetic atmosphere around the stage. Of course, this is only one way the song can be staged live. We don’t know yet if this is what the staging will look like in Stockholm (Russia rarely reveal those secrets), or whether the dancers will even accompany Sergey. With the added LED screens that will be used in Sweden — and whatever equipment Russia can pull out — we could see something on a much grander scale. Still, this is at least a good indicator of Sergey’s talents live.

Of course, the audience went crazy as you can hear in the video (so much so that sometimes it’s hard to hear the music). Sergey’s loyal fanbase will help him all the way, but a performance like this could be what seals him the deal

What do you make of the performace? Are you happy with Sergey’s energy on stage? Let us know in the comments below and via our Twitter page!

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This is my opinion (TIMO)
This is my opinion (TIMO)
8 years ago

Male version of Helena Paparizou :)))

silvester
silvester
8 years ago

I’m not impressed with his song at all. It is overrated. But I like the way he look. He should be more naked to get my vote. 😛

Hide In My Suitcase
8 years ago

Definitely not my favourite song this year and it tries to hard to follow a Eurovision winning recipe.
Having said that though, I think it’s gonna be this year’s winner!
😀

David Who
David Who
8 years ago

As much as it pains me to say it, Russia has the winning package this year. Well done Sergey. x

oxyk
oxyk
8 years ago

Lazarev in Kursk? LOL. will his song have better chances than Kursk submarine? nice sign 🙂 shitty video quality, hard to hear him

Hannah
Hannah
8 years ago

Do Russians look at this bloke and think ‘he’s butch and masculine’

per
per
8 years ago

I hope its not gonna win. Its the land from hel.

Christopher
Christopher
8 years ago

OMG he has to win. Definitely The best song this year!! Love it so much!

SLY
SLY
8 years ago

STOCHOLM on the screen just stole the show! 😀

Tony
Tony
8 years ago

if his performance is that camp on a night in “straight” Russia how camp is it going to be in the gayest festival of the year?

Ian
Ian
8 years ago

Utter crap

kewl
kewl
8 years ago

‘stocholm’ lol the graphic department needs to learn how to spell 😛

Sparrow
Sparrow
8 years ago

Just based on that outfit alone he should change his name to Generic McCheezy.

Jacob
Jacob
8 years ago

I really don’t want Russia to win, it would be a big blow for Eurovision. They’d lose out on revenue because so many LGBT including myself will not go. I would feel scared to go to Russia and there’s no way I am going if they win which is a shame because I have my eyes set on going in 2017.

Music
Music
8 years ago

Homophobic country ! Old music …

Ern
Ern
8 years ago

It’s pretty obvious that this will be the winner.

Adam
Adam
8 years ago

Hope he wins!

Österrike
Österrike
8 years ago

2016 is for me the year when music died. I feel like I have already heard all Eurovision songs a thousand times before.

Random.sage2.6
Random.sage2.6
8 years ago

Sochi 2017! Use the olympic stadium! That staging was amazing!

Macho
Macho
8 years ago

Amazing vocals , love love . Russia will win 12 points from France

Chupacabra
Chupacabra
8 years ago

I still don´t like his voice, no charisma… a boy who pretends to B a hunk, a bit of pathos for chicks and horny lads. Of course he nails it LIVE in his country! A lot of Russians Rn´t critical if they imagine Mother Russia could play a role.

Pabs
Pabs
8 years ago

So dated and lots of screaming rather than singing

Peter
Peter
8 years ago

The only thing that is for sure is that he is a good looking guy, but the song is so so….this performance also is very bland. He will not win in Stockholm with this performance, obviously he is going to have a different presentation. Vocals are ok. But I’m not at all impressed and/or overwhelmed by this performance…

Transmermaid
Transmermaid
8 years ago

He is a hot man ,no question about it ,but the song is horrible, ew.

Felix Prochain
Felix Prochain
8 years ago

Hmm, Mikhail Vasilyev is not exactly objective about this.

fikri
fikri
8 years ago

all those veins popping out of his neck while belting that high note and y’all saying that is playback?

gurl.

Milla
Milla
8 years ago

This performance was way too cheezy for my taste. And cheap. Russia will somehow transform the music video to the stage. No doubt about it. But it’s too shallow. At least Måns had a message. And it felt closer and will still feel closer than this in May. This is nothing even though the song itself is one of my favourites. And wasn’t this playback?

Juan
Juan
8 years ago

@Marc: In my opinion Portugal, Ukraine, Israel, France and Serbia were way better than Believe.

Chance
Chance
8 years ago

@Sara D,

Probably because Jamala has already performed 1944 live at the Ukraine national final, but there has only been the video released of the Russian song, so a live performance is newsworthy

Loo
Loo
8 years ago

I get why this is one of the favorites, I really do. Sergey is a strong vocalist as well. However, Russia will not win for multiple reasons and the jury will not put this in top 5. If not Sweden wins again, I think we will see a surprise win this year. France maybe 🙂

2016
2016
8 years ago

Very boring song … bad vocals … I don’t know this overrated. Surely not a deserved winner.

Victoria
Victoria
8 years ago

WOW! I knew he is good live.. But if this recording blew me away, imagine the performance in the final. Europe, see you in Moscow next year! 🙂

Sergey: Thanks for the thrill, man!

Marc
Marc
8 years ago

Sarah I was talking about televote if I remember right Russia got 7 place in 2011.
BTW Dima’s entries are much better than this. At least they sound as 2006 and 2008 music and not a chiche eurovision song . Believe won because that year we didn’t have any really good.

SaraD
SaraD
8 years ago

Jamala has live concert perfomance too. Why there are no topic about this ?))
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sL4oCSYEx2w

Stan
Stan
8 years ago

You never expect Russia to go for the gay vote 🙂

Pavel
Pavel
8 years ago

All of those who don’t think Sweden may win probably keep forgetting how Lena won without a single note in tune or a really ESC song (sounded like Lily Allen debut album era reject)

Bhrister Cjorkman
Bhrister Cjorkman
8 years ago

Unable to produce a fraction of the charisma he shows in the video. Maybe it is because of the dancing but if Russia wants to win he needs to do more. Moved down from 4th to 7th.

Rock Me
Rock Me
8 years ago

The only thing that left me saying wow was his looks cause the guy is hot but the song is just old.Yeah, it’s catchy but it can’t win.Even the dance felt like it was from 2007 or so.Overrated.

per
per
8 years ago

Greece, France, Ukraine and Serbia are not gonna winn this year. I hope Russia dont winn. A wote for Russia, is a wote for Puttin. Homophobic, warlover and killing people. Sweden 2017

Leaf
Leaf
8 years ago

I cannot agree that Sergey’s bid is better than “Never let you go”, but It is easily better than “Believe” which ironically brought them their first win.

ct_greece
ct_greece
8 years ago

“big contrast to Frans, his nearest rival as it stands for the Eurovision title”

Give me a break. Sweden won’t even be in the final top-10. Stop treating Sweden as some sort of behemoth in a year where it clearly isn’t.

The only competition in Sergey’s field “as it stands” is probably Amir from France. And of course nobody can exclude that a female entry different from what won last year (Ukraine or Serbia perhaps?) will instead finish victorious.

Juan
Juan
8 years ago

@Racal: You’re not that far. Sergey Lazarev was in Smash! a russian boys band. But honestly, this is much better that Dima Bilan’s entires to the contest.

ESCUniverse
ESCUniverse
8 years ago

MOSCOW 2017!

Racal
Racal
8 years ago

This is like “Dima Bilan meets cheap boysband from the 1990s”. Sure, you can see they put a lot of money into this but… Come one, are you really going to vote for this Europe? 🙁

Juan
Juan
8 years ago

@Ewan: Personally I think this contest has “gems” like Estonia, Germany and Italy, but don’t forget that Eurovision is a mainstream tv show so basically wonders like The Common Linnets are not common.

Sophie
Sophie
8 years ago

It began with Iceland being my favourite entry then Spain took over. Now after seeing this. Russia is at my top spot! I would LOVE if they could do the staging like the music video. I think this might be the winner! 🙂

Ewan
Ewan
8 years ago

This is almost going like 2011 again, the well produced but extremely dated and plain pop song winning, ruining the ground being made by much better songs (Germany, Slovenia, etc.) that would have brought the contest out of the kitsch-ville 00’s and into the modern 2010’s. It’s not hard to see that winners influence the sound of many songs in the following years, mainly from countries who don’t have much chance at winning or don’t have as diverse a music industry to warrant something different, or some that stupidly think the audience wants the same thing every year. Sweden luckily… Read more »

Hello hi
Hello hi
8 years ago

@ Juan .. You say this is a song contest then if it actually is Russia shouldn’t get a good result … The quality of this entry is crap !!

Hello hi
Hello hi
8 years ago

Horrible soulless empty cheap trashy predictable emotionless silly badly written vulgar entry .. If this wins it will be a bad thing for eurovision .. Nearly as bad as Azerbaijan 2011 !!!

Juan
Juan
8 years ago

Frankly, if Russia wins, they deserve it. The song is great and Sergey Lazarev is a talented singer (There are lots of videos in You Tube from his live shows).

Besides politics, this is a song contest and Russia has taking the competition seriously.