Will we see a protest against an EBU Rule? This Saturday will see the first heat of Lithuania’s Eurovizijos Atranka, where eventually the representative for Eurovision 2018 will be chosen.
Opening the show this year will be Justin3 where the drummer’s antics may mystify you.
Last year Justin3 opened Eurovizijos 2017 with the song Streets of Vilnius. Despite a strong performance and a catchy song, the jury awarded the band one point. The public were no better, although 244 people did call in to support the band. This meant Justin3 received 3 points in total and were eliminated.
JUSTIN3
The band’s lead vocalist, guitarist and songwriter is Justinas Stanislovaitis. He is joined by drummer Mantas Macijauskas and bass guitarist, Povilas Kavaliauska. The group played together for six years under the name Alive Way, and released five albums.
This year the trio return with the song Born To Be The Wild One.
On Wednesday night, the recording took place for Saturday’s show. To confuse matters, Justinas was joined by Dovilė Keršytė on backing vocals. Also on stage were Martynas Vaičekauskas on the keyboards and Zigmantas Baranauskas on the drums. Zigmantas drew the most attention from the judging panel because of his antics with the drums.
PLAYING AIR DRUMS
As soon as the song started Zigmantas stepped away from the drums and started to imaginary play into mid air. Eurovisionary suspected that some sort of protest was going on, so we contacted Justin3.
The band said it was more of a fun move, where they tried to highlight the absurdity of having musicians on stage, but they were not allowed to play their instruments. Essentially agreed Justin3, it was some form of protest.
The idea came from Paulius Šinkūnas, their musical director.
Whether the drum antics were to blame or not, the jury awarded the band 4 points – although a three-point increase from last year. Tune in on Saturday to see if the public award the group enough points to take them to the next round.
