She twice asked ten thousand people to fall silent — and the hall obeyed: Jerry Heil filled the Palace of Sports

Jerry Heil gave her first concert at Kyiv’s Palace of Sports. The show ‘DZHERELO’ (‘The Source’) took place on 4 April and sold out one of the largest concert venues in the country.

The outlet Babel wrote about it.

The road to that stage took fourteen years. In 2012 Yana Shemaieva started a YouTube vlog covering Okean Elzy, Boombox and The HARDKISS — and in 2016 Sviatoslav Vakarchuk recommended one of her covers on Twitter. Her 2017 debut mini-album ‘Where Is My Home’ was released by Nata Zhyzhchenko (ONUKA) and Yevhen Filatov (The Maneken) on their label Vidlik Records.

What it looked like

‘DZHERELO’ was directed by Alan Badoiev and Ruslan Makhov. Their idea showed in the first seconds, as a ring of light descended onto the stage: from then on it worked as a pedestal, a screen for VJing, a door through which guests appeared, and a hanging chandelier.

An orchestra of more than twenty musicians stayed on stage throughout. Jerry Heil’s repertoire now spans classic pop ballads, dance bangers, R&B and hip-hop, so at times the show looked like the programme of a crossover artist.

Joining her on stage were MONATIK, alyona alyona, YARMAK, DANTES, Misha Pravylnyi and Eugene Khmara — plus two guests from abroad.

The strongest moments were not the effects: twice during the evening she asked ten thousand people for absolute silence, and the hall obliged. There was also a twenty-minute run of lyrical songs.

“I always wanted to create for the long run,” Jerry Heil told the audience.

“Not being afraid is sexy,” she threw into the hall.

What it means for the career

Music critic Ihor Panasov measures that path this way.

“Over the past six years Jerry Heil has covered a distance many never manage in a lifetime,” he writes.

There are grounds for that: after third place at Eurovision 2024 her audience only grew, almost none of her tracks on YouTube are now under a million plays, and the usual figure for new songs is between five and 45 million.