On Wednesday, January 1, Channel One showed the finale of the eighth season of the Voice show. Arsen Mukendi, Yves Nabiev, Anton Tokarev and Asker Berbekov from the coaches of Valery Syutkin, Polina Gagarina, Sergey Shnurov and Konstantin Meladze respectively competed for first place in the song contest. The host of the program, Dmitry Nagiyev, rightly noted that for the first time in the history of the “Voice”, a purely male final was awaiting.
The release began with the appearance on the stage of all the contestants: together they performed the song Last Christmas, known to the world thanks to the duet Wham! (British musicians George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley).
Following on the scene appeared Nagiyev. He hastened to inform that in the final the fate of the project participants will be decided by the audience by mobile voting - the mentors could only cheer for the wards. This time the votes were taken exclusively by SMS, and voting for the contestants you liked could only be done once per stage (three times for the release), and the vote was counted only after the viewer sent a second SMS with a code confirming that the message was sent by a person, not a bot .
The proceeds from mobile voting will go to charity and will be donated to the Naked Hearts Fund by Natalia Vodianova. The model herself, who was present in the studio, told about the activities of the fund.
During the first stage, the contestants did not go on stage alone, but with mentors. So Arsen Mukendi and Valery Syutkin appeared in front of the audience in the costume of Santa Clauses. They performed the song “7000 Above Ground” - a 1995 hit from Syutkin’s album “What You Need”, released after the artist parted with the Bravo group. Then came the turn of Iva Nabiev and Polina Gagarina, who chose for the finale a new song by Gagarina called “Look.”
Anton Tokarev and Sergey Shnurov jumped around the stage to the Leningrad song “Super Hood”. It is noteworthy that they were helped by a singing crowd from among the former members of the Shnurov team, and therefore this number was a little like a duet's performance - rather, group work.
Together with Asker Berbekov, Konstantin Meladze had to go on stage, although he repeatedly emphasized throughout the Voice that he was a composer and producer, but not a singer.
As the audience could see, Meladze was simply modest: together with Berbekov they very harmoniously sang the song “How beautiful you are today”, written by Konstantin and performed by his younger brother Valery. At the same time, Meladze Sr. accompanied himself and the ward on the piano.
Then solo performances followed. They were started by Arsen Mukendi, who presented a mix of the compositions “Black Man” from the debut album of Leonid Agutin and I Wish (“I Wish”) by Stevie Wonder. The number was remembered primarily due to the plastic of Mukendi and the energy with which he rode around the stage.
“The case when Syutkin had an imagination and lost her nerve,” Nagiyev commented on this performance.
Yves Nabiev decided to go the usual way of shocking and show the number with changing clothes for the song Svetlana Loboda SuperSTAR ("Superstar"). Anton Tokarev went on stage with his own interpretation of Max Korzh's composition “Live in high” - quite measured, but no less spectacular. Asker Berbekov finished his solo performances with the song of Elvis Presley Can't Help Falling In Love (“I Can't Love You”).
According to the results of the second round, Mukendi dropped out of the show. However, he emphasized that he already considers himself a winner, since he reached the final of the vocal project. In parting, the artist performed the number for the song “The Last Waltz” by Engelbert Humperdink, who was preparing for the next stage.
In the third stage, Nabiev made a song by Garik Sukachev “My grandmother smokes a pipe”, which again looked very dynamic and spectacular. At the end of the performance, he shouted “Cha-cha-cha” and fell flat on the stage, and this again became a reason for a joke from Nagiyev.
Tokarev got the single of Briton Ed Sheeran Castle on the Hill ("Castle on the Hill"), and Berbekov - "House of Cards" by composer Viktor Reznikov, recorded in the late 1980s by Mikhail Boyarsky.
In the following minutes, Nagiyev congratulated one of the show’s colleagues, musician Sergei Zhilin, on being awarded the title of People’s Artist of Russia; Yves Nabiev left the stage as having collected the least number of votes from the three contestants; and Sergei Shnurov was recognized as the best mentor of the season.
Finally, according to the results of the audience voting, the winner of the eighth season of the show “Voice” was Asker Berbekov. It is noteworthy that he is the second ward of Meladze, who won this vocal competition.
“Thank you very much to all the mentors ... Thank you all, all to rock and roll. Asker, you are handsome, ”said Tokarev, who took second place.
At the end, all the participants of the season together performed on stage the composition The Winner Takes It All of ABBA.