Thirty-nine countries are competing with the aim to lift the trophy in Malmö. The twenty-sixth country to be introduced is Latvia. The country won the Eurovision Song Contest once in 2002. This year PeR will carry the Latvian hopes in Sweden.

Basic information

Performers: PeR
Song: Here we go
Language: English
Music: Ralfs Eilands, Arturas Burke
Lyrics: Ralfs Eilands

The song

This year’s Latvian entry is about a man who is on a mission to fulfil his vision.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I need a starlight
‘Cuz never have I had a day without a fight
I slide through the darkness it took me to a height
Of a lonesome, cold and a never ending night
I’m the man on the moon call me Andy Kaufman
There are demons inside me but I’mma stomp ‘em
I, I know I can be an unstoppable force
I try, man, let me take a walk on the bright side

Here we go, here we go
So alive in the sky we can fly

The performers

PeR which stands for Please explain the Rhythm is a Latvian beatbox and vocal band formed by two singers and beatboxers from Latvia (Edmunds and Ralph). Starting from 2007 PeR have performed in all of the biggest Latvian TV shows. These two musicians have already participated in the Latvian finals of 2009, 2010 and 2012. In the summer of 2010 beatbox band PeR was one of the many contestants in festival New Wave, but before that they visited Estonia to perform in the Reiu Rock festival. PeR have been the warm-up guys before Dub FX in three of his concerts. 2011 was successful for PeR not only in Lithuania, their single Go get up peaked no. 2 in Denmark’s Chart Base TOP 100. PeR were also nominated in an independent music chart as Best New Artists and the video of the song was nominated in the category of Best European Alternative Video and they won in both categories. In the end of 2012 PeR released their self-titled debut album which was nominated as the Album of the Year in Latvia.

The songwriters

Here we go is written by Ralfs Eilands and Arturas Burke. Eilands who is part of PeR, is the founder of the group. He is well known to write his own music. Burke composes a lot of music for Baltic artists and it is the first time that he got into Eurovision.

The national selection

The Eirodziesma final (Latvian national final) featured twelve acts following two semi-finals. In the end PeR was selected to fly the Latvian flag in Malmö.

Latvia in the Eurovision Song Contest

Latvia was the last Baltic country to debut in the Eurovision Song Contest when it did so in 2000. Brainstorm finished third in Stockholm with the song My star marking one of the most impressive debuts to that date. In 2002, Marie N won the contest with I wanna and after disappointing results in 2003 and 2004, Latvia would be in the final every year until 2009 when the country missed every final to date.

Statistics

This will be the 14th Latvian participation in the Eurovision Song Contest. PeR will be the seventh group to represent the country. Here we go is the fourth entry in a row to be presented entirely in English.

Latvian vote in Eurovision

Throughout its history in Eurovision, Latvia gave its most points to Russia while it received the maximum points from Estonia. However if one considers the semi-final votes, Latvia received more points from Estonia and the Latvian awarded more points to Lithuania.

The betting odds

According to oddschecker.com, Latvia is currently standing at number 39 (last place) to win the Eurovision Song Contest. It also doesn’t look favourable for the country to qualify as it is the sixteenth favourite to qualify from semi-final two.

Novēlam Latvijai un PeR panākumus un veiksmi Malmö!

Videos

Preview clip

National final performance

Go get up

Tomorrow another country will be introduced (hint – the country returned to the final last year after the last qualification took place in 2007!)

Have your say

You can rate the Latvian entry by voting in our poll

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You can view previous parts of this series by clicking here