Celebrating their 40th appearance in the contest, three-time winners Israel are sending the biggest party banger song of Eurovision 2017. The unbelievably hot Imri Ziv represents them this year, having been a backing singer for the last two Israeli entries. After some lean years, Israel has had a mini-revival with those last two songs, finishing 9th and 14th in the grand final. Can Imri bring Israel to the grand final again, and making it a hat-trick of final appearances for Israel and for himself? 

I would say an emphatic yes – he’s certainly helped by stunning good looks (and isn’t averse to shirtless pics on his Instagram) and the song really stands out from most of the field in that it is and out and out party banger. I really like this one (unsurprisingly) and the middle eastern instrumentation that kicks in shortly after the 2 minute mark really does it for me. I wish he had been able to come to London Eurovision but maybe he can be persuaded to do Eurofest at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in future 😉

Live vocals have been a bit more of a concern (there are plenty of long and high notes in the song); however, he seems to be getting stronger with each live performance so I think, fingers crossed, he should be OK. Israel do know how to do good staging and they have never finished last (in either grand finals or in semi-finals), and I can’t see them finishing last this year. How high can it come? I think top 10 would be a very good result, but I would expect it to finish in the top half if the performance, vocal and staging come together as I expect they will.

Mum’s reaction: “I can see you dancing to this one; it’s the sort of thing you dance to isn’t it.”

Official music video:

Live at Eurovision-Spain Pre-Party in Madrid:

Israel at the Eurovision Song Contest:

First entered: 1973

Appearances (excluding this year): 39

Best result: Winner 1978, 1979, 1998

Last year’s result: 14th