Imri for Israel on the Eurovision stage for third year in a row
For Imri, 2017 is the year to step out of the shadows. After performing on the Eurovision stage for Israel as backing vocalist both in 2015 and 2016, he will now represent his country as the main artist after winning a talent show. He will perform the eurodance song ‘I Feel Alive’ in May in Kiev. Will he manage to improve the results achieved by his country in the past two years?
After a few years of (sometimes surprising) failure to reach the final, Israel came back swinging in 2015 when Nadav Guedj reached the 9th place on Saturday night with his ‘Golden Boy’. Last year, Hovi Star performed the ballad ‘Made Of Stars’, ending up on a respectable 14th spot in the final. Now it is Imri’s job to top that and the international Eurovision fans are already loving him and his upbeat ‘I Feel Alive’. The song is one of the few proper pop dance tunes in this year’s contest and sonically similar to Demy from Greece’s ‘This Is Love’, but way better executed. Both lyrically and melodically, Israel’s entry makes much more of an impact if you ask me, but at the same time there are some slight ‘problems’ with this track as well.
In terms of build up, ‘I Feel Alive’ takes quite a while to properly get going and when it does, the instrumental breakdowns, both after the first and the second chorus, are a bit of an anti climax. For the last chorus however, everything seems to fall into place and the true force and catchiness of the track is revealed, but as the song takes so long to get to that point, the last chorus ends abruptly after about 20 seconds. The hooks are there and Imri seems to have the looks, the voice and the star quality to sell the track on stage and I’m predicting that to be enough to at least reach the final, but with a better build up (read: capitalize more on that damn catchy chorus) the track could have grown out to become a proper Eurovision hit.
UPDATE – Review on semi final performance:
Last but not least, it was Imri from Israel on stage. The singer who was a backing vocalist for his country in the past two Eurovision editions stepped into the spotlight this time with a dance pop anthem. Vocally, it was all decent enough to sell the track, although there is room for improvement if he wants to come close to the top 10 on Saturday. Visually, the act is good as it is. His dance moves look great and he knows how to own the stage. ‘I Feel Alive’ is a bit too predictable for my taste, but as opening of the grand final it will certainly do its job.
UPDATE – Review on final performance:
After closing the second semi final, Imri opened the final with his dance tune ‘I Feel Alive’. He managed to reach the third place in the semi final, probably thanks to his place in the running order and better vocals on Thursday night. He is a seductive performer who knows how to play with the camera, but vocally he missed a few notes. The Israeli spokesperson announced during the result that this will be the last Israeli participation as the broadcaster IBA will soon stop to exist. Hopefully another broadcaster will join EBU and we will see Israel again to deliver a better result than this year’s 23rd spot.
Check all Eurovision 2017 reviews: Albania – Armenia – Australia – Austria – Azerbaijan – Belarus – Belgium – Bulgaria – Croatia – Cyprus – Czech Republic – Denmark – Estonia – Finland – France – FYR Macedonia – Georgia – Germany – Greece – Hungary – Iceland – Ireland – Israel – Italy – Latvia – Lithuania – Malta – Moldova – Montenegro – The Netherlands – Norway – Poland – Portugal – Romania – San Marino – Serbia – Slovenia – Spain – Sweden – Switzerland – Ukraine – United Kingdom