Eurovision Throwback: Gaitana – Be My Guest

Ukraine in Eurovision seem to have two extremes: powerful, emotion evoking songs, and on the other end of the scale is the punchy, in your face pop anthems which are very much OTT. I could give you one guess as to where Gaitana’s 2012 Eurovision entry fits in that scale. Yep, you guessed right, this is a punchy pop number!

The song immediately catches your attention, and as you see Gaitana walk out onto stage, you can tell she is a very confident artist. Her voice is incredibly powerful, however the issue I have with this song is just how two dimensional it is. From the beginning, it is punchy, but there’s no real break from this within the entire 3 minutes. The music does quieten down during the verses, but her voice maintains that real power. Undoubtedly, there is a LOT of repetition in this song, as if it’s a 30 second song multiplied, and unfortunately for me, I’m just a bit bored of it after that first 30 seconds.

As I mentioned before, Gaitana is an incredibly confident and powerful artist, and she is flawless throughout the entire performance. Saying that, I think the song could have been reworked to build more over the 3 minutes. I think her vocal ability could have been showcased in an upbeat pop ballad rather than a cheap dance song. Saying that, this musical style has an audience, and Eurovision fans are usually exactly that audience.

As for the staging, I also think they missed a really great opportunity here to do something a little more modern and classy. The way Gaitana is dressed (which is beautifully, may I add) doesn’t quite match with mismatched bright colours in the screens behind her. I like the idea of having human like figures in the back to make it look like there are many people on stage but I just hate the colouring – which seems like such a weird thing to dislike, but it distracts me, and not in a positive way. I also don’t really understand the colourful kilt like situation on the backing dancers. I think it would have been more beneficial to select a few complementing colours and focus on creating a colourful but not clashing stage performance.

Overall, I can’t say I enjoy this song, or performance. In terms of stage performances, it’s probably one of my least favourite performances from recent Eurovision memory. As much as it is a great song to get people up and dancing, for me it’s just a filler song, meaning it doesn’t really do much in the results department. To be honest, I’m surprised it ended up in 15^th spot..,

As such, I’m going to give this song a 3/10. It just doesn’t do anything for me.