Country Lithuania Selected entrant Sasha Son | Selection process Lietuvos Dainų Daina Selected song "Love" | |
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Selection date(s) Quarter-finals
10 January 2009
17 January 2009
24 January 2009
Semi-finals
31 January 2009
7 February 2009
Final
14 February 2009 Semi-final result Qualified (9th, 66 points) | ||
Lithuania confirmed its participation in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 in Moscow, Russia. Lithuania were represented by Sasha Son at the contest, singing "Pasiklydęs žmogus" in its English version, "Love", after he won the Lithuanian national final, Lietuvos Dainų Daina.
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Possible boycott
Shortly after the 2008 South Ossetia war in Georgia, the Estonian Minister of Culture suggested a possible boycott of the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest, to be held in Russia. A similar feeling was felt at the Lithuanian public broadcaster, Lietuvos radijas ir televizija (LRT), who supported Georgia in the conflict and believed that "Russia continues to showcase power and ignores international rules." In the end, no Lithuanian boycott occurred.
Lietuvos Dainų Daina
Lietuvos Dainų Daina is the new Lithuanian national selection for Eurovision. It will feature well established and local artists, and will not include foreign composers. Songs are encouraged to be in Lithuanian.
Quarter-finals
Three quarter-finals were held for Lietuvos Dainų Daina, held on 10, 17 and 24 January. From the 12 songs that competed in each semi-final, a total of 36 songs competing, six songs qualified to the semi-finals. Two more songs joined the 18 qualfiers, selected by a jury from the remaining songs.
Quarter-final 1
The first quarter-final of Lietuvos Dainų Daina were held on 10 January 2009, with the songs revealed on 7 January. Six songs were voted by the public to go on to one of the two semi-finals. Ruslanas Kirilkinas was to take part in the contest, however withdrew from the competition, and was replaced by Vita Rusaitytė.
After the semi-final, the voting method used during the show was commented upon, with the non-qualifying artists finding the results "weird and not right". The voting method saw the televotes of 10 regions of Lithuania being converted into points, 1 point for the least favoured and 12 for the most preferred. Alanas, who failed to qualify to the final, said that she found the voting "very bizarre", and that she would like to know how many people voted for her. Augustė, who also failed to qualify, called it "nonsense", commentating on the difference in the amount of votes cast in Vilnius in comparison to smaller towns in Lithuania: "I don't understand how can we compare points of Vilnius and of some small city in Lithuania. In Vilnius we need thousands of votes to get 12 points. Meanwhile in a small city a hundred votes can be enough".
Jonas Vilimas, executive producer of Lietuvos Dainų Daina, said that every city has a right to express their opinion, and that this method is more objective. As such the voting method will remain for the rest of the shows.
Quarter-final 2
The second quarter-final of the contest was held on 17 January 2009, with the songs of this semi-final revealed on 12 January. Six songs were chosen by the public to go on to one of the two semi-finals.
After the show, the winner of the semi-final, "Lietuva" (Lithuania) by Deivis, was disqualified after it was revealed that the song was partly a plagiarism of the song "There She Goes" by The La's. As such, it did not qualify to the semi-finals. This was announced during the first semi-final show. As such Urtė Šilagalytė's song "The Elegant Blues" automatically qualified for the semi-finals. The wildcard entry also chosen to progress to the semi-finals was 8th placed Soliaris, Greta & SEL with "Noriu žinot".
Quarter-final 3
The third quarter-final of the contest was held on 24 January 2009, with the songs of this semi-final revealed on 18 January. Six songs were voted by the public and passed to the semi-finals of the contest. During the first semi-final, it was revealed that Rūta Lukoševičiūtė's song "Trapus žmogus" was disqualified due to plagiarism. She was replaced by Saulės kliošas with "Saulė", who came 7th in the televote.
Semi-finals
The two semi-finals of Lietuvos Dainų Daina was held on 31 January and 7 February 2009. 10 songs competed in each semi-final, 20 in total, which included the top 6 songs in each quarter-final through the televote, as well as two wildcard entries selected by a jury. The two wildcard entries were Soliaris, Greta & SEL with "Noriu žinot", who came 8th in second quarter-final, and Jonas Čepulis and Skirmantė with "Uosilėli žaliasai", the 7th placed entry from the first quarter-final. It was announced during the second semi-final that Deivis and Ruta Lukoševiciute were disqualified from competing in the next selection round. They were replaced by Urtė Šilagalytė with "The Elegant Blues", 7th in the second quarter-final, and Saulės kliošas with "Saulė", 7th in the third quarter-final.
Semi-final 1
The first semi-final was held on 31 January, with 10 of the 20 quarter-final qualifiers competing. Five acts qualified to the final on 14 February.
Semi-final 2
The second and final semi-final was held on 7 February. 10 songs in total competed, with five songs again qualifying to the final.
Final
The final of Lietuvos Dainų Daina was held on 14 February. 10 songs, five qualifiers from each semi-final competed in the final, with the winner representing Lithuania at the second semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 on 14 February.
The winner was of the contest was Sasha Son with "Pasiklydęs žmogus" (The lost man), receiving the maximum number of points from all regions. Second-place went to Donatas Montvydas, with 69 danguje coming third. Sasha Son will now represent Lithuania at Eurovision in Moscow.
At Eurovision
Lithuania had compete in one of the two semi-finals after Jeronimas Milius came 16th in the semi-final of the 2008 contest.
During the second semi-final, which took place on 14 May 2009, Lithuania qualified for the final and eventually finished in 23rd place with 23 points.