Georgia 2026: Bzikebi with ‘On Replay’

Always one of the later countries to show their hand, we were once again kept waiting right until the end for Bzikebi’s offering:

First off, fair play to Georgia for putting some serious effort into their music video again after going for a bit of an unconventional approach last year and the country in general drifts wildly from doing entirely their own thing without a care about results and then seemingly trying to tick the boxes and make at least an appearance in the final.

This is closer to the second approach although like many times previously this doesn't quite land. There's a lot going on in this and it doesn't really work as a straight up song or as something fun. To me this feels like is a camper 'Fulenn' (France 2022) or dare I say a less camp 'I.M.' (Israel 2022).

It's a tricky half of semi final one and on account of that alone almost it's difficult to see Georgia getting through. It feels unlikely to be in the top 10 of the televote or the jury vote before remembering Georgia are also regularly geographically isolated and a bit forgotten. There's some potentially friendly points but nothing game changing at all.

Georgia are actually pretty decent at staging and qualify or not usually look stronger live. I'm not really convinced by our lead's charisma as the focal point of Bzikebi however and the trio dynamics constrain staging options. It's a high energy song and translating that across without looking goofy (in a bad way) will be a real challenge. In the hypothetical world where I had to draw straws to try and stage something myself, I really wouldn't like to be tasked with this one. I'm just struggling to visualise the live elevation required.

Has to go down as a likely NQ.

Personal Rating: 8/20

Televote Potential: 7/20

Jury Potential: 5/20

Staging Potential: 9/20

Track Record: 4/20

Overall Rating: 33/100

Early Prediction: Semi One 12th-15th

Volatility Factor: 1/5 Really not a lot of upshot here I don't think