Türkvizyon Final. Photo : TRT

Turkey may not be at Eurovision 2014 but they have now come to the final of their first running of Türkvizyon. Here is our LIVE rolling blog for the Grand Final – Just Refresh the Page for updates. You are in the capable hands of Andrew and he will guide you through the 12 finalists.

The show starts now at 16:30 GMT and you can look like HERE

The Finalists are as follows

• Altai
• Azerbaijan
• Belarus,
• Bosnia and Herzegovina,
• Kazakhstan,
• Kyrgyzstan,
• North Cyprus,
• Kosovo,
• Uzbekistan,
• Tatarstan,
• Turkey,
• Ukraine

Welcome to my rolling blog of the Grand Final of Turkvizyon.

Keep refreshing for updates.

The show begins with traditional Turkish dance and music. Next we have the artists and country/region flags entering the arena.

They end up on the stage accompanied by music. Then the hosts arrive on stage and welcome us all to Turkey. They then explain the voting procedure( I am amazed my Turkish is so good). We then get a video explaining the reasons for Turkvizyon.

Now we have a video on the host city Eskisehir. Very nice it looks too.

I am watching the show on the TRT Musik channel link and it has a sign interpreter for the deaf in the bottom corner.

They are in no rush to start the actual songs, as we now seem to have some dignitary giving us a long speech about whatever.

Dignitary number 2 comes on and gives us an even longer speech, I know this because I managed to feed the dog, go the toilet and then crack open a bottle of wine, and still he is on.

They are now introducing the jury from each country.

Ok here we go.

Turkey the hosts are on first. Minerva are a good ethno Turkish group which give us a good opener. The band are all in black and white and are giving a good account of their song Sen Ben Biz.

Belarus are up 2nd with Gunesh singing a lovely haunting ballad Son Hatıralar. She wears a stunning white sparkling gown and is accompanied by a male/female dancers who are giving a combo of Swan lake meets Nutcracker. A lovely accomplished performance should do rather well.

Up 3rd are Kosovo and Ergin Karahasan sings for them, he reminds me of a pub singer at a wedding and the song is the most ethnic song yet very very Turkish. He is accompanied by 2 colourful dancers and this is all very pleasant but would be surprised if it won.

It went down well in the arena though.

Next up we have Kazakstan. We have a quite modern sound from a good looking boyband called Rin’go and not a beatle in sight.

This is very refreshing actually and would not look out of place in the charts.

On 5th we have Bosnia Herzegovina. This is a very likeable song by Emir and the Frozen Camels although why you would want to freeze cigarettes I have no idea. It has a strange bird like call through the song but I like the uptempo beat and its a good song.

It ends with a scarlet lady coming on with a rolling pin in her hand(?) .

Half way through now as Tatarstan come on with the very songful Alina Sharipzhanova in good voice wearing a white traditional pill hat and dress. A slow paced ballad here with wide sweeping vocals. Very accomplished indeed.

Our 7th song is from Ukraine. It is surprisingly for me very ethnic in sound, look and feel. Elmalım is sung by Fazile Ibraimova. She starts the song wearing a veil and discards it part way through the performance. We also get a keychange which gets more votes at Eurovision but will the same rules apply here?

Song 8 is from The Altai Republic which is a region of Russia on the border with Mongolia. Artur Marlujokov sings this song and is dressed in a white suit and has a very operatic feel to his voice and performance. A good baritone voice if I may say and the song is a slower midtempo ballad which sounds good.

Big cheer for the next song from Azebaijan. Another Farid sings for them but Hasanov this time. A very pretty young man too.

A modern feel to this uptempo song with good choreography I think it will be up there at the end of the voting.

Song 10 is from Northern Kibris better known as Cyprus. Gommalar group consist of a male female duo and they sing

a very angst ridden ballad. It is well sung but it also has me reaching for the razor blades due to the angst.

Penultimate song now is from Kyrgyzstan with the song Kaygyrba  by Çoro. A very youthful looking group of lads dressed

in black suits and ties a very jolly sound they make too. This is very upbeat and quite modern and may well stand out near the end.

The last song is from Uzbekistan. This for me is the closest to a typical upbeat Euro dance tune. Nilufar Usmonova gives a very credible account of her song  Unutgin. She is on the stage herself which is quite daunting and may have been helped by some dancers or backing singers.

We go into the Green Room which is actually in front of the stage to talk to many of the singers.

We then get a recap of all the songs then move onto the interval entertainment.

We get the results in performance order so it does not take long.

We have a winner and it is Azerbaijan.

Belarus are 2nd and Ukraine 3rd.

Tatrstan were 4th and Altai 5th Turkey 6th.

Kosovo came 12th.

Prize ceremony is then followed by winning reprise by Farid with all competitors on the stage behind him.

Thank you for following this rolling blog of the inaugural Turkvizyon all the way from Edinburgh. Thank you and goodnight.

Author : Andrew James Main

Source : Eurovision Ireland