Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

  Latvia's LTV organized the national selection Supernova once again. 15 semi-finalists were selected among the 108 submissions and 10 of them reached the final. Dons took an easy win with his Hollow. He has been twice the runner up already: in 2010 with My religion is freedom and 2014 with  Pēdējā Vēstule .  Artūrs Šingirejs aka Dons (39) is a Latvian singer-songwriter, born of Belarusian father and Latvian mother. He has learned to sing and play guitar by himself and has studied culinary arts instead. He started performing at school but didn't get into music until 2003 when he took part in Talantu Fabrika talent show where he also met Lily (or Linda Kalnina, his future wife) and they did an album together. His solo debut  album came in 2006. Since then he has become one of the most succesful Latvian singers and has won Top Hit Radio award eight times for the most played song, and The Song of the Year award for five times. Add twice the Best Pop Album (out of five ...

Latvia's Aarzemnieki is fronted by German Jöran Steinhauer. He already has Eurovision national final experience from 2008 with Axiina . After a succesful farewell to Latvian lat last year with Paldies Latiņam! this year he and his foreigners have a Cake to bake . Robert : Latvia, in fact, made me angry. Wrong song won! Not that the winning song of Aarzemnieki is not cute but when you have a super song in your preselection which is also nr 1 in the charts, how can you as a nation not vote for it? It beats me. With Dons and Pedeja vestule , Latvia even had a chance to win the whole thing. However, I predict Cake to bake to go to the final also. YES final. Blogilkar: Aarzemnieki wasn't my favorite either but somehow I wasn't at all surprised it won. I suspect it will do much better than any fan polls and betting odds indicate. I had several favorites in Latvia, including Dons. MyRadiantU and Mad Show Boys (even if they were rather chaotic live and didn't eve...

Aarzemnieki has won the Latvian final with Cake to bake . So the acoustic folk trend continues. They beat Samanta Tina and Dons in the superfinal.  JURY vote: 1.        „Revelation”, Ralfs Eilands & Valters Pūce, 2.        „Pēdējā vēstule”, Dons, 3.        „I can breathe”, Aminata Savadogo, 4.        „Cake To Bake”, grupa „Aarzemnieki”, 5.        „Stay”, Samanta Tīna, 6.        „Going All the Way ”, grupa „MyRadiantU”, 7.        „Moment and tomorrow” , Katrīna Bindere, 8.        „If I Could (Get Away)” , grupa “Eirošmits”, 9.        „Saule riet” , Olga un Līgo, 10.    „Lights on” , Markus Riva, 11.    „Here I am again” , Niko,   ...

The second Latvian semifinal took place last night and Dons and Markus Riva made it along with Ralf Eilands and Vaters Pūce, Katrine Lukins, Eirošmits and Katrina Bindere. They will join the final line up on February 22, 2014. I wouldn't be surprised if Latvians go for Ralfs again... and among others we had twin drum set on stage, black Madonnas, bearded men (to honor Ms Wurtz maybe?), a barechested male completely out of place, Kylli-täti (Finns know this only, sorry!) with a disturbing bulge shot, nerd with groovy moves, classic wardrobe gimmick, Marie N.... it's all there! Oh well Mad Show Boys' staging may have sounded great on paper and it does, but on stage it just didn't work then.... More practise and a very sharp caemra work would have made it work, me thinks. Now it was a mess. Shame. But the song's great! Another song wasn't, it was off key all though it. Ralfs Eilands and Valters Pūce – Revelation   Katrine Lukins – You are the reason ...

Latvia will have it's semifinals this weekend. Two semifinals with 12 songs, and six of them from each semifinal will go to the final of Dziesma on February 22, 2014. With a couple of listenings I shortisted my favorites and at this point they are MyRadiantU, Mad Show Boys, Dons, Rolands Udris and Olga & Ligo. Bubbling under are Markus Rivas, Aarzemnieki, Andris Kivics.... Let's wait and see if they will go all the way to the final, and maybe even Copenhagen - I have no idea how Latvians will vote! Listen all the songs here . Semi-final 1 - February 1, 2014 DJ Dween & Sabīne Berezina - Dejo Tā  Crazy Dolls - Bučas Tamara Rutkovska - I am happy Niko - Here I am again Ivo Grīsniņš Grīslis - I've got Aarzemnieki - Cake to bake Oskars Deigelis - Just stop Samanta Tina - Stay MyRadiantU - Going all the way Aminata Savadogo - I can breathe Dāvis Matskins - I need more Olga & Līgo - Saule riet (Take away) Semi-final 2  - Februar...