On Monday we ushered in the beginning of National Final Season 2024! Welcoming us to this new Eurovision era is Czechia. Who will succeed Vesna as the Czech Eurovision act for the contest in Malmö? Let’s find out.
This is the sixth edition of ESCZ — a selection show which has delivered a consistent run of decent results for Czechia. This includes a Top 10 finish for Vesna last year with their feminist anthem “My Sister’s Crown“.
We saw seven acts competing for the honour of representing Czechia. This year the quality is said to be at a new level, with popular artists Aiko and Lenny vying for the spot. Fan reaction was incredibly positive to the line-up, and we’ve now heard all of the songs. From female self-empowerment rock to atmospheric upbeat pop, variety was really on show.
Wiwibloggers Lucy Percy and Tom Hendryk watched the show live and typed out their real-time comments below.
Now that you’ve seen all the acts we want to know: Who should sing for Czechia at Eurovision 2024? Vote in our poll and let us know. You can vote for as many acts as you’d like — but you can only vote one time, so make it count. Tick the box next to every artist you want to support.
ESCZ 2024 Grand Final: Live Discussion
You can watch ESCZ live on Eurovision’s official YouTube channel from 20:15 CET (19:15 GMT)
LP: Good evening Europe! We are live and ready to see what Czechia can do. We start off with Lake Malawi giving us a rendition of their 2019 entry “Friend of a Friend”. A cute little nod to their performance with Albert shouting “Ladies and gentlemen, we are Lake Malawi IN the Czech Republic!”. This is Czechia’s first national final with a live audience of course.
Time to be introduced to the acts from this year, intorudced and interviewed by Eurovision jury vote winner Cesar Simpson no less! Let’s do this!
Aiko – Pedestal
Aiko is up first. She is now based in Brighton, UK but grew up in Czechia. ‘Pedestal’ is a power-punch of a rock song about self-love and doing better by yourself.
LP: Aiko is in a body suit, and has clear and true-to-studio vocals. She has choreogrpahy which adds to the performance greatly! She is shouting a few lyrics in the chorus as opposed to singing but it kinda works?
Actually no, she started screaming a lot of it at the end. She’ll need to manage the energy differently if she goes.
TH: Eurovision 2024 national finals are underway!
AIKO has the honour of kicking the night off and in a sexy body suit no less with a rock anthem “Pedestal”. Very breathy and I couldn’t really understand half of the words that were coming out of her mouth. Loving that she threw the kitchen sink at the performance! However, excessive screaming and writhing around….sorry not for me.
Elly – The Angel’s Share
Elly tells Cesar her song is about healing, and recovering from a trauma.
LP: This was lovely, and performed really well. She is in a long white dress, and much like the hook in her song is is very “beauuuutiful” indeed. Clean vocals, and a catchy tune depsite being slower than teh previous song. Not sure it’s amssively my cup of tea, despite everything I find it a bit bland in it’s current state.
TH: Ethereal with a punchy chorus! Don’t mind this one bit. With a bigger production this could really pop in Malmo. Not a huge fan of greased up gents doing some unnecessary choreography at the back. Lose the boys and add something a little classier. Overall, lovely stuff and winning for me so far!
Gianna Lei – Starlet
In her interview, we found out that Gianna studied msuic in London. She says her biggest weakness is overthinking, because she knows each artist is different. ‘Starlet’ is a song to pep her up and remind herself she can achieve what she wants to.
LP: The best production on a song so far in the show. A great drum beat paired with a light poppy tune over the chorus. Gianna also looks the part with large white puffy sleeves over a black crop top, and the most amazing fluorescent yellow boots. This is ridiculously fun, but the vocals are maybe not perfect. Still, it is a solid entry and has every chance of doing well.
TH: Cute, fun pop and I really like that she has some style! Unfortunately it’s a really forgettable track. Unlike Elly’s performance, this song needed some backing vocals or some dancers to fill the stage more to give the performance more punch. She looked very alone on that very small stage.
Lenny – Good Enough
Lenny is a multi award winner, with her song ‘Hello’ being huge in Czechia. Cesar commends her for wanting to go to Eurovision as a well-established artist. Lenny wants to do the show for the experience. She says ‘Good Enough’ is a personal song, where she discusses imposter syndrome and self-sabotage.
LP: ‘Good Enough starts slow, and indeed is a ballad. Lenny performs from a piano in a simple black outfit. The track suddenly kicks up to another level taking the sound from acoustic to electric, with plenty of drama to boot. It’s really great – and with Lenny being an established act, she’ll be able to take the pressure in Sweden if she were chosen.
TH: Clearly a quality, seasoned performer. No nerves, just sheer class, Lenny looked like this was the interval act she was that comfortable. I would have preferred an even bigger ending but I can easily see this qualifying. I feel that if this does qualify and it has an excellent chance, it might get lost in their semi-final.
MYDY – Red Flag Parade
MYDY have toured all over Europe, and are passionate about the quality of the visuals and song as a passioponate. They describe themselves as electro-dance-rock!
LP: I think I speak for all of us when I say thank god. This was wonderful, so upbeat, so fun, and finally perfect vocals throughout the song. The 5-piece band are all in matching costumes themed around a marching band. This is SO high energy, and the chorus is absolute chaos. Kind of a disaster bop and I fully mean that as a compliment.
TH: Loving that this genre of music is on this lineup! Love the beat and “Red Flag Parade” pops out from the songs that performed so far. Some for brilliant reasons and some unfortunately, not always for the right reasons. It’s a hot mess. Everything just felt a bit loud and dated. I think that would go down well in the Euroclub. Let’s face it, if Euro fans have the sole say it will qualify but I doubt the Czech fans will get on board and send it to Sweden.
Tom Sean – Dopamine Overdose
Tom wants to make a party on the stage and give everyone a dopamine rush. He wants to create the vibe of 5am in a techno club, to make the crowd dance.
LP: This is really exciting, and I imagine in a larger-scale national final like Melfest this would work absolutely beautfully. This isn’t shade to the scale of ESCZ, it just isn’t quite working in this scenario. We have to bear in mind Eurovision is MASSIVE however so rememebr that when voting!
Why do I kind of love the lyrics “sweat on your body, sweet like teriyaki”? Despite the genuine fun of this song, I’m not sure where the techno vibes he’s talking about are. It’s far from perfect but it would be a darn good entry for Czechia in a more polished atmosphere.
TH: The 90s are back! Sweet like teriyaki are lyrics I didn’t think I was going to hear today! Fair play to this guy, as he has worked on his stage show. It was full and energetic. The dancers worked, the backing singers aided the performance without overloading the leading vocal. He made the most of the stage! Again, this will be a hit at the Euro club, it’s memorable BUT yet again, it’s dated! It literally sounded like something from Eurovision in the 90’s. People will like it though!
Tomas Robin – Out Of My Mind
LP: This was one of the more promising performances of the evening. You can tell he had tech issues throughout the whole performance, it is sad to see because he is going to be a GREAT performer when he has better production behind him. I honestly think he deserves to win this though, he did so well depsite everything. Out Of My Mind was extremely catchy, I loved it. I think he has my vote!
TH: Brilliant way to finish the show!
Electric, a great husky vocal, retro and yet modern. Tomas has certainly turned my head who I think could qualify from this lineup! I can see this at Eurovision and it feels like it has potential to be uplifted with a few extra Korona! He’s a likeable guy too! This could be the public and the jury’s second favourite song and that might be enough?
Will you be tuning in to ESCZ 2023? Who do you want to see representing the Czech Republic in Liverpool? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
