The viewers from Latvia, made their decision tonight on who will represent them at the Eurovision Song Contest 2017. After they had all made the call to Latvian Television’s Supernova, Triana Park was declared the winner.

Latvia will appear in the second half of the first semi final on May 9th.

The Songs

Santa Daņeļeviča – Your Breath

In her flowing black dress, complete with roses in her hair, Santa opens the show. This is a ballad, of which there are so many this year. Where she shines, is in her terrific singing voice. Flashing thunder in the clouds is the backdrop, well suited to the song. As the song continues it explodes into a strong chorus, helped by her two backing singers. The judges seem to like the song. Santa has done very well to make the top four. Can she win the whole thing?

The Ludvig – I’m in Love With You 

Jekabs Ludvigs, or The Ludvig as he prefers to be called, has a nice chill out song for a dark evening. A flashing red stage, saw The, sitting by the piano, in a grey coat and white shirt. After the first chorus, young Ludvig gets up to sing at the front of the stage. An electronic organ bangs away in the background. The Ludvig is only sixteen and gives a very impressive performance. The girls in the audience were screaming with delight. This ballad is a little different from some of the others.

My Radiant You – All I Know

Dancing In The Dark while your Sex Is On Fire, appears next. Since All I Know sounds like both of these songs, of course its good. The duo are accompanied by a guitarist, drummer and two backing singers. Miss Radiant plays the piano, while her male counterpart sings and plays along with his acoustic guitar. This is a real hand clapper and very easy to see why the audience loves it. Very tuneful and easy to remember once it’s over.

Triana Park – Line 

This is by far the most modern song in the contest, probably best described as techno, Agnese needs to watch the English pronunciation at times. The chorus is very infectious. Despite all the neon glow around the band, though, the staging is still very dark.  Agnese wore a purple dress. The audience whooped and hollered throughout the whole performance. Are Triana heading to Kiev?

The Show

Ketija Senberga, in a pink dress, primarily hosted the show, with Tom Gervens doing most of the green room and after performance interviews. Latvia has to be commended for having four very different songs in their Supernova final, although they also lost a lot of good ones along the way.

A bad transmission made the Riga beaver even more annoying than usual. Do Italian gorillas eat beavers? The first break had him waving a ribbon around to some hip hop music. Has anyone told the Latvians that maybe that’s why they didn’t qualify for six years. The audience was filming like crazy on their phones. Imagine if on their way home, their memory is full, they’ll live to regret that.

The show could be over in 15 minutes were it not for the ad breaks and the beaver. One hour in, and only two of the songs have been performed. What a joy that the show went straight from The Ludwig to My Radiant You, without a vermin break. However having said that, The Radiants talked and talked forever.

The second break found the beaver singing some reggae, complete with two red balloons. Surprisingly, the number was better than some countries forgotten entries, though not good enough to suffer more than once.

You have to hand it to the Latvians, they don’t hold any grudge at coming last in the past, and indeed, Intars Busulis performed during the break, with a much better song than his Eurovision entry.

After the voting was closed, Justs returned to perform his new song, Message To You and pleaded with Europe to go out and buy it.

The beaver returned once more, before the results were announced, to prolong the agony and dance around as only a beaver does. The acts had to stand around on stage behind them, wondering if this happens in any other Eurovision finals.

The Results

The winner, Triana Park, was chosen solely by the Latvian public. The runners up were My Radiant You. Santa was third, with The Ludwig placing fourth.

Latvia In The Eurovision Song Contest

Last week, we looked at Latvia’s history up to 2008 when from their debut in 2000, they achieved three top five placings including a win with Marie N in 2002 with I Wanna.

However things turned sour in 2009 when the country started a six year spate of failing to qualify for the final. Led by Intars Busulis in 2009 with the song Probka, it was disappointment after disappointment for the country. Aisha, Musiqq, Anmary, Per and Aarzemnieki all were left in the semi finals, with three of the songs Prodka, What For and Here We Go actually finishing last.

In 2005 Latvia’s fortunes changed for the better when Aminta took Love Injected to 6th place, and the following year, she wrote Justs Heartbeat which finished 15th. Latvia will be hoping that Triana Park can continue their recent run of good luck.

Watch Latvia’s 2017 entry below