Monday 30 January 2017

Lithuania 2017 - Vlad Max - I'll Never Let You Down


A strange thing happened when I was reviewing my stats on Saturday night (because we bloggers love to reflect in our own puny glory like that, of course.) All of a sudden I started getting a massive run of hits on last year's Vlad Max song from Lithuania. You may remember it - a fluffy little pop tune with a lost looking lad warbling all over the top of it. And then it dawned on me - Vlad was due to have sung in this year's qualifier earlier that evening. People must be hunting a clip of that down - something excellent must surely have happened.

So when this morning LRT finally uploaded the clips, I rushed to the videos to track it down. And while it wasn't quite as key rambling as last year, it still had its charms. Lots of them. The tune itself send me down memory lane to turn of the century electronic indie pop acts like White Town, and Vlad's naive but incredibly warm and honest vocal tweaked vague memories of early New Order before Barney discovered the disco pills.

But what I think drew most people to want to relive this moment was his reaction to the judge's somewhat damning comments at the end. Where he'd had the stage presence of Bambi in the headlight of an 18-wheeler during the song, he suddenly transformed into a confident, sassy young lad, coming back at the ageing panel with a succession of quick quips and smart remarks, even eliciting applause from the forgiving crowd on occasions, too.

Now, if he can just harness that fun power into his singing we could be onto something in a couple of years.

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