Lithuanian broadcaster LRT has released the details of its national final Pabandom iš naujo! 2021. Followed the revamp of the contest in 2020, there are no major changes to the contest format. However, 2020 winners THE ROOP have been guaranteed a place in the grand final.
LRT has opened submissions and publishedthe contest rules for the 2021 edition of their national final, Pabandom Iš Naujo! Nacionalinės Eurovizijos Atranka — We Go Again! National Eurovision Selection.
Gytis Oganauskas, the Deputy Director-General of LRT confirmed there won’t be any big changes to the contest. He said, “Last year’s changes in the Eurovision nation final paid off, therefore there will be no major innovations in this year’s selection rules, except for the circumstances related to the pandemic.”
The Covid-19 pandemic is mostly felt in the new rule allowing pre-recorded backing vocals. With the EBU having allowed pre-recorded backing vocals to be used in Rotterdam, LRT is also allowing acts to do the name in the Lithuanian national final.
And the days of the epic ten-week national final is long gone. Following on from the slimmed-down format of the revamped Pabandom iš naujo! 2020, the 2021 edition will also likely run for six weeks. It is likely to again consist of three heats, two semi-finals and one grand final.
While 36 acts competed in last year’s show, this time LRT is only guaranteeing a minimum of 20 acts. If the contest goes ahead with that smaller number of participants, there may be fewer live shows.
Voting in the shows will be determined by a televote and jury vote mix.
The song is open to both songwriters from Lithuania or abroad — or a combination. However, the performers can only be Lithuanian citizens.
The contest is focused on songwriting rather than performers. Songwriters making an application list the prefered performer for their song. Following on from the Monika Marija two-song controversy of 2019, artists can only perform one song in the contest.
THE ROOP have a place in ‘Pabandom iš naujo! 2021’
Pabandom iš naujo! 2021 is also saving a guaranteed spot for 2020 winners THE ROOP.
Like fellow Baltic act Uku Suviste, THE ROOP have a place saved for them in their national final. But unlike Uku’s semi-final place in Estonia’s Eesti Laul, THE ROOP will be going straight to the grand final.
The trio will also have the right to perform their entry at all previous stages of the contest prior to the grand final. This ensures that the Lithuanian public will be exposed to THE ROOP’s new song just as much as the entries from the acts competing in the heats and semi-finals.
THE ROOP recently posted to Instagram, celebrating the confirmed countries line-up Eurovision 2021. They also gave a shout out to Iceland for internally selecting Daði Freyr for Rotterdam.
The competing acts will be selected by a jury of experts from LRT’s entertainment divisions. The competing acts are expected to be announced sometime in early January 20201
The full schedule of Pabandom iš naujo! 2021 has not yet been confirmed, but the contest will kick off on Saturday 16 January.
What do you think? What sort of song should THE ROOP take to Pabandom iš naujo! 2021? Who else would you like to see competing in Lithuania’s national final? Tell us your thoughts below!
It’s a song contest, thus, we must not feel obliged to send the Roop straight away just because they had a cool song a year before. For example, their song “Yes, I do” would never have gotten so much excitement from public here in Lithuania and all around the Europe. I just hope that people in Lithuania won’t vote for the Roop based on last year’s entry and rather evaluate the context we’re going to have in 2021 + choose the best song. Also, I’m a little bit anxious that 2021 ESC will be mostly filled by up-beat songs following… Read more »
Nice to see they’re still very big friends with Dadi <3
I don’t have a problem that the show is going to be shorter. Lithuania was eating up around 75% of my time evaluating all the songs in the recent years.
with the gigantic margin of votes the roop received when they won their national final earlier this year, it shows that the viewers didn’t just vote for them on a whim, i’m sure that the roop will win their national final again
Don’t forget about jury, The Roop lost in 2018 just cause of the jury …and ieva won 🙂
I didn’t understand. Is The roop officialy participating in the national final?
They will be in Lithuanias grand final. But that doesn’t mean qn they gonna win.
Yes, the Roop will participate on the selection again. But instead of going through the heats and semi-finals, they’re going to compete right away in the grand final.
At least they have a chance of returning!
I hope their entry will be good enough like On Fire
They were my winners of 2020
I’m glad that at least they got a free pass to the final. And it’s very nice to know they’ll perform in the other phases of the competition too. This guarantees the same exposure and an opportunity to get the staging right by having some feedback from the audience.
I have no doubts that The Roop and Uku will win their respective national finals, mostly thanks to the public vote. I hope they will come back.
The Roop most likely, unless another famous Lithuanian act has an even better song. Uku I’m not sure of, him working with the Dream Team again gives me pause.
The Roop were better (though What Love is wasnt too bad and had a decent chorus), but i feel (fear?) that Uku would fare better in a challenge format, particularly given the margin by which What Love Is won, even given for the weaker standard of acts and less hit potential, and the fact he is a longer running star (and named sexiest man by local tabloids).
Whether or not Uku has a good song, we saw last year that the public vote pushed him to victory because of the voting system which favours popular artists such as Uku. I’m not saying it is a bad thing, in fact it works in our favour in 2021.
Dadi and The Roop were the Eleni and Netta of 2020 – here’s hoping they can be the same for 2021! I think this is very fair and makes sure that even if The Roop aren’t participants by default, they’re getting more than a fair shake.
I’d say the Eleni and Netta were Gjon and Victoria in 2020, but I reckon at least a top 10 for Lithuania was essentially assured.
At least in terms of style
For me, this year’s Foureira was Athena of Armenia – Sexy Greek woman singing a song far more congruent with today’s pop trends, with a likely SJB stage show (all Athena has ever said on q&as is that it would be “Fierce, fierce, fierce” – I have thought of a concept of it which uses most of the choreography from the selection and the video, but also uses camera trickery, extreme strobe lighting, striptease, And elements to ensure all focus is on her) and on an even more extreme scale than Fuego (and also HER song, unlike Fuego). The Roop… Read more »
Please, Leo. We get that you love Armenia’s song. But your obsession is going too far. You don’t need to comment about how much you love Athena on every single article.
Plus as a song it’s mostly just kinda OK. Probably would qualify and finish mid-tier.
I think the worst it would have done was similar to Lie To Me or Origo (if it was given a first half slot), which would still be one of Armenia’s 5 best places, but this kind of act and song elicits lots of stans,like those of Little Mix and Ariana, who are amongst my fave acts (and also Cardi B, Normani, Megan Thee Stallion and many others – it is a very hip way of sexual expression), and has potential beyond Europe and in the americas – there was at least one occasion that I got a South American… Read more »
PLEASE LEO ENOUGH ITS ENOUGH NOW
Without bringing up that it finished dead last in my professional jury thing (no thanks to Greece), you’d be tripping to think it’d get as high as Lie to Me or Origo. She doesn’t have the stage presence of a Mikolas or the spiritual intensity of Joci. The staging would need to be like Fuego on steroids if it wanted to touch Iceland, Lithuania, or Russia. (Also Switzerland already copped SJB and I’ll never not be sad that we never got to see her staging for Repondez-moi. Her non-bop work shows a totally different side to her.)
SJB does multiple entries. Georgia also would have had an SJB staging (hence why it was still seen as a qualifier despite the questionable implications of the lyrics), making it 3. Armenia and Georgia had both last used her in 2017 and Armenia’s current HOD wrote their entry that year, which had good staging but was not many’s main fave and only got 20 points televote, not much more than us. I think that, despite other entries, like ours in 2019, failing with B&W staging, Switzerland would have fared well with it, but for me, it’s hard to see it… Read more »
I’m very pleased about the decision to give a free pass for The Roop to the Final of Pabandom is Naujo 2021. I have high respect for all the Baltic broadcasters, as they all are letting their 2020 representatives to have a chance in representing them again in 2021. I’m not sure tho, if The Roop has accepted the invitation? I really hope they bring a good song with them and it’s a good idea to let them also perform in the heats/semifinals etc. It would be really cool to have them back in 2021!
The first lot of confirmed names won’t be announced on January 16 – that’s actually when the shows will begin 🙂 the selection jury will choose all the participants until December 23, so we could expect them to be announced sometime in late-December or early-January