Lights, a set of big rocks and a strong vocal. That’s what we can expect from Sevak Khanagyan’s performance during the show’s first semi final. Take a look in  our gallery.

Armenia is competing in the first semi-final with start number 16. The country is represented by Sevak Khanagyan and the song Qami, which is written by Sevak himself in collaboration with Anna Danielyan and Viktorya Maloyan.

Complete the sentence interview

Gallery

Second rehearsal

Opinions expressed during our second rehearsal coverage are personal from the mentioned writers.

Pedro, Portugal (in the press center) – One of the strongest vocals of the entire competition this year. In my opinion, the performance still requires some adjustments especially with the smoke – they only got it right in their last run which was surely the best one and created the biggest impact as the entire scenario was filled in with smoke that went perfectly along with the props. It could easily qualify..

Michael, United Kingdom (in the arena) – Very powerful manly vocals. This is a supercharged performance with no stage gimmicks required. Strong and confident, the song soars and Armenia deserves to make the final again. The stage is extremely dark so that you focus only on the voice. Armenia have come up with a masterpiece this year.

First rehearsal

Similarly to a few countries in this Eurovision edition, Armenia made some investment in their stage with a few props. In Sevak’s case, the singer brought with him what seems to be a set of rectangular rocks that form a circle around him. Qami is performed in the center of that circle entirely and things only change when the last chorus kicks in.

Once that happens, an entertaining set of lights take place and give a boost to the performance that until that point is somewhat monotonous and only standsout due to the different angles of the cameras that, once in a while, cross the rocks and give a pretty view of the stage.

As for Sevak, the Armenian singer is wearing a light yet long gray jacket that goes along with the staging. He doesn’t really move, only during the song’s big notes towards the end. Just like the singer has gotten us used to, the vocals were certainly the highlight of the performance and could score some big supporters just for that.

How Sevak Khanagyan was selected

The Armenian national selection Depi Evratesil consisted of two semi-finals and a final. Late December 2017, the broadcaster AMPTV announced 20 acts ready to compete for the honour of representing the country at the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest. The selection offered quite some drama this year.

On the 19th and 22nd of February, two semi-finals found the 10 finalists competing in the final on the 25th of February. Former Eurovision participant Tamar Kaprelian was an early fan favourite, but surprisingly she failed to be one of the five qualifying from the first semi-final. Afterwards she accused the producers of rigging the result to get her out. After the second semi-final, Tamar put her attention on one of the participants, Asmik Shiroyan, who she accused of copying her ideas.

In the final, Sevak Khanagyan won both the jury points as well as the televoting with Nemra as runner up.

Armenia at the Eurovision Song Contest

11 appearances, 10 finals and seven times a top 10 result. Armenia is one of the most successful countries that are yet to win the Eurovision Song Contest.

They debuted back in 2006 where André sang Without Your Love to an 8th place. In the following four years, the country continued their success always coming in among the ten best. In 2011, it became clear however that even Armenia could fail. Despite being quite catchy, Emmy’s Boom Boom didn’t qualify for the final. To date, that is however their only miss.

In 2014, Aram Mp3’s Not Alone came in 4th matching the best results achieved by Sirusho in 2008 with the song Qélé, Qélé.