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Credit to the team at Czech TV. You can see their vision to grow support for a national final despite a budget of about two ha’pennies and a button. After an embarrassingly cheap show last year, albeit one which delivered a top 10 result at Eurovision, where an extra 50 koruny had clearly been found in the coffers for Liverpool, this year’s affair had a modest upgrade with a studio audience. Seven acts competed with Aiko topping the podium with her Pedestal.
Thematically this is great. It’s a talker-upper of a song, a self-boosting confidence track to take better self-care and look after your own needs, particularly in matters of love. Aiko, a Moscow-born, Czech-raised artist now living in Brighton in the UK, delivers it with a punchy determination to believe her own mantra. A revamp from the Czech final adds – in the video at least – a brief spoken argument with a partner on which she reflects to draw strength and steel.
Looking at the that first live performance it’s clear the revamp has added to the song. Live, Aiko seemed to be overtaken by the underlying rage in the track, which made the performance far too chaotic. It’s a song that needs to channel just the right amount of anger to be at its most impactful.
It’s also a song that just doesn’t work for me. Try as I might, I really can’t warm to it. At odds of up to 400 to 1 it feels few expect the rest of Europe to either.
Photo: Teki Shine/EBU