Czech Republic are one of the Eurovision babies, having only made their debut in 2007 – with not much success may I add. They haven’t participated every year since then, but it wasn’t until 2016 that the nation actually qualified to the final, but that still remains the only time we’ve seen the nation in the final. This year, it’s up to Mikolas Josef to turn things around with his song Lie To Me, so will we see the Czech Republic return to the final?
Interestingly, the Czech Republic chose to use a national final this year, well, without any televised component, but still the public were able to vote on the song they thought would best represent them at this year’s contest. Even though there was a selection of songs, realistically, the choice was obvious, and as expected, Mikolas Josef took the top spot convincingly, with both the top points from the jury and the public. Will a convincing win within the national final translate to Eurovision success?
I believe it will, and in fact, I think this is the Czech Republic’s best chance of reaching a Top 10 position. It’s consistently been high in the betting odds, and I think that’s justified, as this is the type of song that can be appreciated by a wide audience. It’s incredibly catchy from the first second, and Mikolas’ youthful energy makes it hard not to like. It’s a modern track that will stand out with Belgium before, and Lithuania after in the running order.
Although the song is good, what will really bring this to life is Mikolas’ charisma and personality on stage, which we’ve definitely seen as he hits the promo pre-parties. In his performances, he hasn’t featured any accompanying dancers, but yet he manages to get audiences up and dancing. He knows how to command the stage, and that’s an incredibly good skill to have coming into Eurovision.
All aboard… the bop-whop-a-lu bop train!
I think it would take a big staging fail to make this a non-qualifier on the night. I do hope that we do see something a little different from Mikolas to what we’ve seen on the promo scene the last few months, as we have seen the same style of performance each time, but perhaps they’re just saving the big guns for the main performance. I would be surprised to not see this in the final, especially being one of the favourites leading into the contest.
Our rating: 9/10
If you support Czech Republic at Eurovision, make sure to vote for Mikolas in our poll! Watch his official video below, and follow our Eurovision 2018 playlist on Spotify
