Lynn Macgillivray
After a global search, F.Y.R Macedonia has found their representative and song for the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest. Macedonian Radio and Television (MRT) announced yesterday that pop-rock duo Eye Cue will represent the country when the contest heads to Lisbon in May this year.
The search began earlier this year when songwriters and producers were encouraged to submit entries to the MRT. In total, 383 entries were received, and from this, a jury selected the winner – a song called “Lost and Found”. We have yet to hear the song, but we are sure whatever its sound, Eye Cue will do a great job of delivering the song to a worldwide audience come May.
The duo consisting of Bojan Trajkovski and Marija Ivanoska debuted in 2008. They have since become one of Macedonia’s most popular bands’ thanks to their hits including “Magiha”, “Not This Time” and “Najdobar”.
You can watch “Najdobar” by Eye Cue below:
F.Y.R Macedonia has not had much luck in the Eurovision Song Contest since it first entered back in 1998. They have yet to win the contest, with their best result coming from Elena Risteska in 2006 who finished in twelveth place. As well as this, the country has only qualified for the grand final once since 2008. This was with Kaliopi in 2012 who finished in thirteenth.
Last year, F.Y.R Macedonia sent Jana Burceska to represent them in Kyiv, Ukraine with the song “Dance Alone”. This song was loved by Eurovision fans for its catchy, up-tempo tune. However, Jana’s performance in the semi-finals was unfortunately not enough to get her through to the final.
You can watch Jana’s performance below:
F.Y.R Macedonia will be hoping to improve on their recent form at Eurovision, however, they already have some tough competition. Other acts that have been announced so far are Sennek for Belgium, Saara Aalto for Finland, Waylon for the Netherlands, AISEL for Azerbaijan, Cesar Sampson for Austria, Jessica Mauboy for Australia, Eugent Bushpepa for Albania, Iriao for Georgia, Madame Monsieur for France, Julia Samoylova for Russia, Alfred & Amaia for Spain, Mikolas Josef for the Czech Republic, Ryan O’Shaughnessy for Ireland, Eleni Foureira for Cyprus, Christabelle for Malta, Zibbz for Switzerland, SuRie for the United Kingdom, Rasmussen for Denmark and Ermal Meta and Fabrizio Moro for Italy.
The Eurovision Song Contest 2018 will be hosted at the Altice Arena, Lisbon, Portugal; with the two Semi-Finals taking place on 8 May and 10 May and the Grand Final taking place on 12 May. A total of 43 countries will compete in the contest.
