Aftermath 2017 (3): A bad year for the Baltics

In the upcoming days, we take a look at the aftermath of the Eurovision Song Contest 2017. In this third episode we talk about the three Baltic nations that all failed to qualify for the final. What went wrong for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Latvia and Lithuania booked some top 10 results in recent years. And also Estonia is a frequent guest at the final of the Eurovision Song Contest. In 2017 however, none of these nations were there for the show on Saturday in Kiev. The biggest surprise came from Estonia. Koit Toome and Laura were predicted an almost certain spot in the final, but were punished in the jury vote. Yes, their performance in the jury show was pretty bad, but placing them almost at the bottom feels a bit harsh.

Lithuania’s ‘Rain of Revolution’ was a carcrash from the beginning and never was a contender for qualification. Latvia’s Triana Park was, but the colourful performance was not picked up by jury nor televote and got the last place in semi final 1:

Triana Park Live @Eurovision

The Aftermath

The disappointment was huge for Koit Toome and Laura. She said, after the elemination: “I walked around and tried to put a hand to the shoulder at the people and say that we did our best and I think that this story is a message to the people, which was the most important thing.” Koit Toome thinks it is time for a younger artist to take the stage for Estonia, which already started the preparations for Eesti Laul 2018.

In Latvia, Triana Park got a mellow homecoming. Only the relatives of the band were at the airport, after their failure to qualify from the first semi final. Chances are that broadcaster LTV will stick to Supernova as their format to pick the song for Eurovision though.

If LRT Lithuania also sticks to the marathon format Eurovizijos is not known yet. Surprisingly, because many failed artists usually speak negative about the contest after their result, the group Fusedmarc remains enthusiastic about Eurovision: “If we get a song that invites us to take part again, we will definitely do that,” the lead singer said back home in Vilnius.

1 Comment

  1. Estonia not qualifying was not that surprising. The entry is very formulaic and lacks musicality and creativity. So not surprised about the jury verdict. Nevertheless, I had expected tbe televote to compensate for this, which didn’t happen.

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