Lithuania

Nomads In The Night Jeronimas Milius

Pointless though it may be, analysis of the draw for the running order is as much a part of the Eurovision experience for many fans as the contest itself. We extrapolate the statistics to within an inch of their life in an attempt to determine who's sitting pretty and who's been given a bum deal, despite the fact that it is only one of a number of variables and can never truly be relied upon in predicting how an entry will fare. However, it does show that a song's chances of success in Eurovision often come down to context. One of the biggest "how did that happen" moments since the introduction of the semi-finals was the unenviable downfall of the Dutch entry Without You in the 2004 final: having qualified in sixth it then plummeted to 20th place, shedding all but 11 of its original 146 points in the process. Some would say it was the result of performing early in the draw rather than last, but it probably had more to do with the German entry that followed (and trounced) it. Either way, it didn't work in context. And if any song in 2008 is certain to suffer a similar fate, it is the Lithuanian entry Nomads In The Night.

The reasons here are nevertheless slightly different. Whereas it was pure bad luck that Re-Union found themselves back-to-back with Max and Can't Wait Until Tonight, an entry that fell into roughly the same category as their own (and was clearly considered more voteworthy), Lithuania's problem is that Jeronimas Milius winning any kind of televote only really made sense in the context of the national final. Despite only beating Aistė Pilvelytė - who would likely be performing Troy On Fire in Belgrade in place of her former backing vocalist had she not fluffed the ending in the LRT TV studios in Vilnius - by a couple of hundred votes, there was something about his performance, combined with the lighting and stage design, that made it stand out. Transplanted to the contest itself, however, it is highly doubtful whether it will have the same effect, and not least because the only Lithuanians who might be tempted to vote for it out of duty are stuck in Ireland in the first semi-final.

Preceded by four songs and performances we can only assume will be much more immediate, Nomads In The Night is simply too awkward to earn widespread appeal. It takes more than two minutes to come together, coinciding with Jeronimas' voice being drowned out most effectively by the music; up to that point the vocal arrangement, though quite complex, just comes across as ungainly. Although some notes do tail off, he is never actually off key, and yet given how difficult it is at times to tell the difference it's much easier to presume that he is - as many people have done to date and are probably likely to do again on May 22. It doesn't help that the emotional tug of the song is overwhelmed by the (unintentional?) sense of it looking and sounding like a minor number from a forgotten 1980s musical adaptation of some obscure Brontë novel.

Not that I'm saying there's no room in Eurovision for minor numbers from forgotten musical adaptations of obscure Brontë novels -not if they're done better, or at least more accessibly - but as niche markets go in a contest designed to find a song everyone can relate to it pretty much takes the cake. Nomads In The Night wouldn't have felt out of place as Lithuania's debut entry back in 1994, but even then it still would have come across as dated. I certainly can't see it winning the jury wildcard (with all those synths? are you kidding?) and apart from a scattering of points thrown its way by Lithuanians who have wandered across the border into Latvia or Belarus I can't see it picking up support anywhere else either. In fact I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it earn them their second semi-final wooden spoon in four years - which in the context of the expanded contest is, I suppose, an achievement of sorts.