The Roop flies to Rotterdam for Lithuania with ‘On Fire’
Lithuania has been quite hit and miss when it comes to earning a spot in the grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest. Since the introduction of the semi finals, their percentage of qualifying is just over 50%. Since they started participating they only made the top 10 in the final twice (2006 and 2016). This year they chose their entry through a national final once more which was convincingly won by the band The Roop. They received the most points from both the jury as well as the televoters, which means they will perform their song ‘On Fire’ in Rotterdam in May.

The Roop consists of three members with Vaidotas Valiukevičius providing the vocals. They tried to win the Lithuanian national selection before in 2018, but 2020 turned out to be their year. They co-wrote ‘On Fire’ themselves and they describe it as a song about underestimating yourself and being too critical of yourself. They packed this message in an upbeat electronic pop tune with an insanely catchy synth drop. The melody is quite simple and straightforward and easily settles in your brain after one listen. The swinging production of the tune is on point and will certainly get the crowd in Rotterdam going.

But how will it come across on tv? Singer Valiukevičius spices up their performance with a rather bizarre, yet eye-catching choreography all through the performance, which explodes in the synth drop. On the one hand, it certainly makes the performance more memorable, but at the same time it runs the risk of being seen as a novelty act, while the tune itself is not bad at all. Another let down so far, are the predictable, cliche lyrics (a fire-desire rhyme…) and the poor pronunciation of said lyrics. Those dance moves and the catchy tune might provide enough distraction from this though. It will be interesting to see how this will all work out for Lithuania.

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