Introduction

• Participant(s): O. Tovald
• Song: "Time"
  
• Writer(s): Kamenchuk Yevhen
• Composer(s): Zhenia Galych & Denys Miziuk
• Broadcaster: UA:PBS
• Social media: 
  
• Team review: 

After Jamala’s fulminant victory in Stockholm with the song “1944”, Ukraine is now the proud host country of the 62nd Eurovision Song Contest. For the second time the capital Kiev has the honour to be in the spotlights of Europe in the first weeks of May. In 2005 Kiev and Ukraine have proved to be great hots and this will be expected again.

There has been a national final, the surprise winner was the rock band O.Tovald. In 2005 the rock band Greenjolly has been chosen as host entry, this year we have a similar situation with a rock band. O.Tovald was founded in 2005 and consists of Zhenia Halych (singer and frontman), Mykola Rajda (Dj, keyboard), Oleksandr Solocha (drums) and Ihor Odarjuk (bass). In the beginning they played in small clubs, than in bigger arenas and in the meantime on big festival stages with hundreds of concerts. The band has produced 14 singles and 5 albums.

The Ukrainian host entry “Time” is a real rock song with meaningful lyrics, as it’s about looking for peace – “Let's take time to find a place without violence" is a part of the song text. Rock songs have been seen in the ESC from time to time, but beside of Lordi’s “Hard Rock Hallelujah” (1st place for Finland), those entries were not very successful. If “Time” is the right song for the contest is the big question? This will definitely be a contrast to the other songs in this year’s Grand Final and get attention.

History

• Debut: 2003
• Participations: 14
• Victories: 2
• Finals: 14
• Top 10: 9
• Chances for Top 10 placing: 69 %
• Chances for Final: 100 %

Like no other country the Ukraine belongs to the most successful countries in recent history. In the short history, which all started in 2003, Ukraine could win two times, they always qualified for the Grand Final and there were nine Top10 rankings including two big victories. The Ukraine is participating for the 14th time at the Eurovision Song Contest this year and will also be the host country. 

The debut year was 2003 when “Hasta la vista” by Olexandr reached a 14th rank. Only one year later, lovely Ruslana impressed Europe with her “Wild Dances”, she won the ESC immediately with her sweeping energy. After that Kiev hosted the 50th anniversary contest – a wonderful show indeed. Having the Eastern European countries in the ESC has been criticised a lot in those years as other Western European countries suffering from low rankings and felt disadvantaged. But the new and bigger contests has brought wonderful songs with a lot of new inspiration to the contest. So it’s a truly benefit to open the contest to more and more countries. This has paid off a lot.