Ukraine have chosen to send Mélovin to Lisbon. There was plenty of drama in tonight’s final including accusations of lip synching. Does Ukraine have what it takes to have a third victory when the contest arrives in Portugal in a few months time?
Mélovin has been voted as the winner of Ukraine’s National Selection Show Vidbir. He has a busy few months ahead as he and his team get him ready to perform on the big stage in Lisbon. His song Under The Ladder won the second heat of the competition last weekend and has come up trumps again this evening. The X Factor Ukraine winner has a lot of work to do. Despite his nice vocal abilities, some fans were concerned that his English pronunciation needed some work. Some could not understand what he was singing, hopefully he will take steps to improve this as he prepares for Eurovision.
It was pretty much a two horse race this evening. Both Tayanna and Mélovin’s performances were stepped up a gear in tonight’s show. Tayanna gave a more energetic performance with more elaborate staging. Melovin performed the latter part of his song at the piano above the stage. The frame of the base was on fire which added an extra spark to the performance.
The Show
Each performer took to the stage. The order was decided during last weekend following the results in heat 2. Each finalist was invited to the stage to select a blank envelope. Inside the envelope was a number from 1-6. The competitors performed in the following order:
- Kadnay
- Tayanna
- The Erised
- Laud
- Vilna
- Melovin
At the end of each performance, judges Jamala, Andriy Danylko (Verka Serduchka) and Eugene Filatov critiqued the artist and their performances. As usual, they did not hold back in their comments. Andriy Danylko went a step further.. perhaps a step too far according to some viewers as he unleashed an attack on Tayanna. Following her performance of Leyla which saw her step up a gear since last weekend’s show, Danylko accused her to lip synching. Tayanna rebuffed these comments be breaking out into song to prove she could reach the high notes. This didn’t stop Danylko who continued to press her. Tayanna’s manager who was sat in the audience leaped to her defence screaming “Andriy, shame on you!”
After a voting break, the show returned. Judge Jamala who won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2016 took to the stage to serve as interval act, just as she did in Kyiv last year. Luckily for her there were no stage invaders this time and she was able to perform her new single Крила / Wings.
Some of the competitors also returned to the stage as part of the interval performance. Vilna sang Jamala’s 2016 winning song 1944 with The Erised singing Molitva by Marija Šerifović.
The Results
Following the recent pattern the votes were announced first starting with the jury and followed by the result of the televote. Host Serhiy Pritula asked the judges one by one how they rated each of the performers. Next it was time for Serhiy to announce the results of the televote. Each viewer could only vote once for a contestant per phone number. In total they received 179000 votes.
Here you can see a full breakdown of the results:
| Artist | Jury | Televote | Overall |
| Melovin | 5 | 6 | 11 |
| Tayanna | 6 | 4 | 10 |
| Kadnay | 3 | 5 | 8 |
| Laud | 4 | 2 | 6 |
| The Erised | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| Vilna | 1 | 3 | 4 |
You can see the winning performance below. Melovin with his song Under The Ladder.
