Latvia serves electronic pop for third year in a row with Triana Park
From 2009 to 2014 the Eurovision Song Contest was one big disaster for Latvia as they missed qualification for the final six years in a row and became last in the semi final in three of their attempts. The Latvian broadcaster changed the national final to a new concept called Supernova in 2015 and that immediately worked a lot better. That year they reached the 6th place in the final with Aminata’s magnificent ‘Love Injected’ and last year Justs reached a respectable 15th position on Saturday’s show with Aminata’s composition ‘Heartbeat’. This year Latvia serves us electronic pop for the third year in a row with the song ‘Line’ by Triana Park. Will this result in a spot in the final for the third year in a row as well?
The Latvian indie pop band Triana Park managed to win Supernova convincingly with their fast paced electro banger ‘Line’. The insanely catchy track follows an intriguing build up that explodes in the all consuming final chorus. The repetition of the ‘where we draw the line’ bit will definitely stick in the memory of the viewers. Question is that will be experienced as pleasant though… Their performance in Kiev will be similar to the one they did in Latvia which means: explosions of bright colours in both the staging and outfits with a futuristic and slightly trippy feel, which suits the track perfectly.
My only concerns with Triana Park at this stage are the live vocals (which were a bit shaky at times during their national final performance) and the sometimes incomprehensible English pronunciation. If they improved this for their big night in Kiev, I’m pretty confident they will sail through the first semi final, where they will perform last, and so will stay fresh in the mind of the voters. If it was up to me to select the 10 finalists, Latvia would definitely be one of them!
UPDATE – Review on semi final performance:
The staging fits the song perfectly with the colours and band setting and it seems singer Agnese shares the same stylist with Suicide Squad’s Harley Quinn. It might have been a bit too trippy for some, but I sure did enjoy this uptempo pop number a lot more than the cliches from Greece. Vocally, the performance could have been more convincing, but I still have the ‘where we draw the line’ bits stuck in my head. I am not surprised Europe didn’t vote for it enough, but I will surely miss Triana Park on Saturday night!
UPDATE – Semi final result:
Triana Park literally only received 1 single point from the juries! Televoting placed them in 17th position with 20 points, which gave them the 18th and last spot in this semi. Quite shocking, I thought they deserved much better!
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