Will Donny Montell be able to give a solid enough performance to take "I've Been Waiting for This Night" to the Eurovision finals?
Country: Lithuania
Song Title: "I've Been Waiting for this Night"
Artist: Donny Montell
Second Semi-Final: Position #9
Last year's entry: "This Time" - Monika Linkytė and Vaidas Baumila (18th Place)
I've been waiting for an opportunity to get enthusiastic about Lithuania's entry this year, but it just isn't happening. Here's Donny Montell's "I've Been Waiting for this Night":
Most of my concerns about the track being overproduced have not been addressed, as shown by there being zero changes to the song since I last wrote about it. There is video of a live performance from the Israel Calling event from a couple weeks ago:
Hmmmm. I'm not sure which is more off-putting: the pitchiness throughout the performance or the moves borrowed from Magic Mike.((Sorry, Donny Montell, but you're not Channing Tatum.))
The crowd is rather enthusiastic about this track, so that complicates the prediction as to whether this song will advance to the Eurovision final. As of this writing, "I've Been Waiting for this Night" is on the bubble with bookies, YouTube views, and the telESCope gang. Within its group of spiritual competitors — Denmark and Ireland — I think this is the stronger track, but I suspect there will be a lot of vote-splitting. Lithuania may have enough oomph from neighbors to push it into the final, but I suspect it is going to be close.
However, the performance(s) in Stockholm will need to be more on point than the one in Tel Aviv if Donny Montell wants to make his second trip to the Eurovision finals.