Tonight Latvia made its choice. A total of ten hopefuls were battling in a live show for the ticket to Baku and the combined choice of Latvian audience and the jury showed that Anmary with her "Beautiful Song" was the lucky act.

After two semifinal shows, which were held in January, ten songs made it through to the final of Eirodziesma 2012, but only one would get the honor of flying the Latvian flag in Baku. The Latvian representative in the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest has been known tonight, as is tradition, from the theatre house Juras Varti in the beautiful city of Ventspils.

The songs: (you can read more about the participants in our Get To Know article)

Song 1: Ruta Duduma – My World

We start with a
well produced song. It is formed well lyrically and melodically,
however, you do feel like you have heard it all before. She did a very
good performance vocally as well as visually with her modern pop ballad, that talks about the people who changed the way they live and their little
world. The staging was the same as in the semi-final. She was playing the guitar at the beginning of the performance and with her on the stage there were three female backing singers all of them dressed in black and white dresses. She wore a white dress with some decorations in black and black boots. It is to be feared this entry may get lost amongst the other competitors.

Song 2: Samanta Tina & Davids Kalandija – I Want You Back

Their voices, which are really different, sound good together but Samantha’s voice is maybe too strong for that kind of song. This dramatic ballad tells the story about two people coming together to share their pain. They wore the same clothes and performed the same staging as than they did in the semifinal. Once again we have come to realize that the end of this song is not sufficiently clear to the public because they began clapping several seconds after it is finished. Listening to this song more than once, it gets better but it is not enough.

Song 3: PeR – Disco Superfly

That is a 80’s-disco style song, eccentric, fun and it has a lively rhythm but after three minutes listening it can cause you little headaches! The performance philosophy is simple, the show is good, clean fun and they aim to entertain everyone with a party atmosphere. They were dressed in colorful suits, one pink and one blue. At the beginning they were singing from a base, which restricted their movements but they did not take long to leave the mic stand and jump and dance around the stage. The four female backing singers were dressed in black and what is striking is their afro hair style.

Song 4: Triānas Parks – Stars Are My Family

This
is the fifth consecutive year that they qualify to participate in an
Eirodziesma’s final. Their vocals are great for the song (although
sometimes it sounded a bit out of tune) which is well performed and
quite catchy. They present a medieval staging atmosphere. The three girls were
dressed in period costumes and musicians wore costumes of minstrels of
the Middle Ages.

Song 5: Paula Dukure – Celebration

This 5th song is
pure fun and it has such a good vibe to it. The rhythm is slightly
addicting and her singing is great. Her voice rang out strong time and
time again. The song talks about birthday’s celebration and that is why
she was dressed as a huge cake and the three backing singers were playing the role of waiters.

Song 6: Andris Ābelīte – Pedejais Vards (We Can Change The World)

This time, he has decided to perform his song in the Latvian language. That is a sophisticated ballad and he is a vocalist with great emotional range and sophistication or a combination of both. He sings, talks and flirts and he would like to change the world with his timeless, brilliant and message filled song. As in the previous performance he delighted us once again playing the trumpet. With him on stage there were a piano player and three female backing singers dressed in white.

Song 7: Anmary – Beautiful Song

This is one of the catchiest songs we heard tonight. The lyrics speaks about what would happen if she won the Eurovision Song Contest and her song became a hit. So many fans would love this, but the song has a disadvantage: her poor live vocals. The performance seemed not at all like the one we had seen before. She wore a blue and white dress and a white hat. During the performance there were around her two female dancers who made it much mor enjoyable and, besides dancing, they dressed and undressed Anmary who ended the song wearing and elegant black and white dress.

Song 8: Elizabete Zagorska – You Are A Star

Due
to safety issues the performance of this song is quite different from what we saw in
the semi-final. The staging is good but her singing is off key in the
most important places. The fire was replaced by flashlights and the four men who were with her on stage, playing percussion with bright sticks, wore work clothes and helmets. In the case of the amazing guitar that burned in the semi-final tonight it was bathed in water. Elizabete wore a nice red dress.

Song 9: Mad Show Boys – Music Thief

That is a song, which most people either love or hate and the performance is quite odd from the beginning to the end. The six band members were disguised as different characters and there is some good satire, but it is not performed well enough to make it relevant. The performance started with a policeman coming to the stage skating on wheels with a wanted poster and it ended with one of them dressed as Lordi appearing from a piano remembering Dima Bilan‘s 2006 entry. They won the televoting in their semi final so they definitely can rely on some support from the audience but it would not be enough for tonight’s victory.

Song 10: Roberts Pētersons – She Is A Queen

That is a promising pop-rock song whose lyrics say that everyone can find someone who is perfect for him, like another half. The vocals are quite good and that could be one of the stronger performances of the evening. He is on stage accompanied by a drummer, two guitarist, a keyboar player and a backing singer all of them dressed with the same clothes that they wore in the semifinal. The stage lighting is dark blue with lot of white lights that flash to the beat of the song.

The show:

It had an interesting opening with the performance of the celo trio called DaGamba playing Abba‘s song Gimme Gimme Gimme.

The hosts of the show were Jolanta Strikaite, Kristine Virsnite and Valters Fridenbergs. 

It consisted of two stages. During the first stage the ten candidates performed their songs and both the jury and viewers, who were able to vote from the beginning of the show, picking their favourites. Televoting results were shown from time to time throughout the show making it possible to get an idea of who would be the top three for the audience.

Olga Rajecka & Jam Crew were responsible for starring in the interval act while the first results were decided with a nice staging of the song Robots.

After a half an hour break, last year’s Latvian representatives Musiqq opened the superfinal with the song Dance With Somebody. They two were dressed in dark suits and sitting with them on the stage there were a guitarist.

During the second stage the three superfinalists’ performances were showed again and again and then the voting was opened once again.

This year’s Swiss representatives, Sinplus, are becoming a classic in the national finals taking place in recent days. They were singing his Eurovision entry Unbreakable. 

We celebrate this year the tenth anniversary since Latvia won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2002 with Marie N singing I Wanna so, as expected, she had to be one of the guests in the final. Tonight she sang in French the romantic ballad Une Vie d’Amour.

The results:

Each of the jurors (Elmans Zeinalovs, Daiga Mazversite, Raimonds Tiguls, Sigita Jevglevska, Andris Erglis, Janis Sipkevics, Olga Rajecka, Marija Naumova, Raimonds Bergmanis and Biruta Ozolina) distributed their points one by one and the result was as follows:

Ruta Duduma: 74 points
Samanta Tina & Davids Kalandija: 74 points
PeR: 65 points
Triānas Parks: 55 points
Paula Dukure: 69 points
Andris Ābelīte: 66 points
Anmary: 70 points
Elizabete Zagorska: 18 points
Mad Show Boys: 34 points
Roberts Pētersons: 55 points

Combining the decision of the audience and the jury the top three who qualified for the superfinal were: Samanta Tina & Davids Kalandija, Mad Show Boys and Anmary. 

At the superfinal, the expert jury and viewers were equally responsible to select the 2012 Latvian representative and the winner was Anmary.

Last year in Düsseldorf, Latvia failed to qualify for the final but in 2012 LTV hope to reverse their fortune and do well in Baku.

Below you can watch the winning performance: