Now that Eurovision is on home soil, OGAE Ukraine organised a big party at the Euroclub with focus on the host country, but without forgetting the international event that Eurovision is. Earlier this week the Euroclub was almost completely empty, but last night that was definitely not the case. It was far from full, but without any doubt the audience was big enough to get a nice atmosphere.
Somewhere around 9.30 pm the party started with Andriy Knyaz performing songs in what to me sounded like a more traditional style than the average songs, We also got a little showcase of Ukranian traditional dancing as during one song four dancers performed on a platform in front of the main stage.
Apart from national final candidates Vladislav Kurasov (Ukraine 2016 / Belarus 2017) and Melovin (Ukraine 2017) there were performances from some of the most popular Ukrainian acts at Eurovision. Alyosha impressed many people in 2010 with a honest, simple yet very effective staging that brought her in the top 10. Seven years later she's a well-known singer in Ukraine. She sang her hits Kaply, Kalyna and Feromony lyubvi.
Quite at the last moment a few surprises were added to the lineup. From this year's Eurovision we had on stage Brendan Murray (Ireland) who had brought his guitar and gave us a-capella versions of Britney Spears' and Ed Sheeran hits. Of course he was not allowed to leave without "Dying to try" - also a-capella (and too short in my opinion, as he didn't sing the full song!)
Martina Barta from the Czech Republic was also present. She treated us to impressive versions of Skyfall by Adele and Road to Mandalay by Robbie Williams.
Last but not least to perform was Slavko Kalezic from Montenegro who for the occasion brought us a remix version of Space that is definitely as good as the original to me. Delegations from some other countries, for example Fusedmarc (Lithuania), Demy (Greece) and Kristian Kostov (Bulgaria) also attended the party but did not perform.
However, the big star of the evening, the highlight for everyone was the performance of Verka Serduchka who nearly won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2007. She really got the crowd going with her performances of Dancing lasha tumbai, Vse budet horosho and other hits.
All in all it was a great evening, many thanks to everyone at OGAE Ukraine for organising this party. I loved how there was a good tempo, most performances followed each other and breaks were not excessively long and - most of the times - featured Eurovision music!