Today is Statehood Day in Lithuania, a national holiday to mark the coronation of Mindaugas as the King of Lithuania in 1253.
This year many fans predicted Lithuania would achieve their best Eurovision result to date. No matter their place if the contest this year had of gone ahead, The Roop were definitely set to give us an unforgettable moment in Lithuania’s history at the contest. To celebrate Statehood Day, we look back at some of Lithuania’s unforgettable moments at the contest so far.
One Kiss
In an upbeat pop-folk styled song in 2015, Monika Linkytė and Vaidas Baumila represented with ‘This Time’. The performance came to a dramatic pause in the middle where the two sing the line “one kiss!” and then share a fairly lengthy kiss. Behind them two male and two female back up sings also kissed (including 2019 entrant Jurijus), with a huge cheer from the arena audience.
Donny’s Flip
In 2012 Donny Montell represented with ‘Love is Blind’. He began the performance blind folded, and as the beat kicked in he removed the blindfold and effortlessly launched into a flip, followed by some Michael Jackson inspired dance moves.
Keeping it in Language
In 1999 Lithuania returned to the contest for the second time. It was the first year that the language rule was lifted and countries could sing in any language, which saw a majority of songs that year performed in English. Aistė Smilgevičiūtė represented Lithuania with the song ‘Strazdas’, which she sang in the Samogitian dialect of Lithuanian. It came five years after their first attempt at the contest, where Ovidijus Vyšniauskas had performed in Lithuanian and received no points, placing last. Since 1999 however all of Lithuania’s entries have been in English (with only a part in Lithuanian in 2001 and a part in Russian in 2009).
Barbara Dex Award
Vilija Matačiūnaitė definitely got attention in 2014 when she performed her song ‘Attention’ in a black body suit and tutu, winning her the infamous Barbara Dex award for that year. The most unforgettable moment for the costume came during the performance when her male dancer was on the floor below her and stuck his hands up through two hand holes in each side of the tutu, leaving viewers scratching their heads trying to interpret.
Sparkly Hot Pants
InCulto delivered an unforgettable performance in 2010, with their ska track ‘Eastern European Funk’, which was upbeat and light-hearted on the surface of the performance, but had a political message in the lyrics. The song and performance are memorable enough, but it’s their costume reveal down to sparkly silver hotpants towards the end of the performance that most people will remember.
These aren't certainly all of Lithuania's Eurovision moments but they are the ones that caught our eye. With a unique style I'm sure we'll see even more of these from Lithuania in the future.