POLAND

The Polish Final was held on March 3rd at the TVP Headquarters in Warsaw. The winner was chosen by a 50/50 combination of televoting and jury. Winning the national final was Gromee feat. Lukas Meijer with “Light me up”

Lukas is centre stage with an electric guitar however he doesn’t play it all the time. Behind him is Gromee who is wearing a similar outfit to Lukas and is stood behind a kind of turntable/mixing desk/drum kit/keyboard setup. Also on stage is another male guitarist who does backing vocals and then 2 female backing vocalists. Behind them the colour palette is kind of dark blue/black and rotates between sparkly lights, pulsing circles as well as having the title of the song dotted around. There is no real choreography although Lukas does move a lot around the stage.

This is very much in the style of the radio friendly dance music that has been in the charts for the last few years. It has a very repetitive, if not anthemic, chorus and everyone on stage seems to be having a whale of a time. The verses are a little bit nondescript and the chorus is simplistic and very lengthy but the song really comes into its own in the little instrumental just after the chorus. I can imagine the crowd jumping up and down to this bit. Lukas and the backing singers blend quite well live although I find he is a little bit too distracted but I think this can be solved very easily.

This is a fairly standard Eurovision performance but I feel a few things could elevate it. Firstly, Lukas needs to have much more of an identity. He looks like an indie country rock guy but is singing an EDM track. If he styled himself a little but more like Alexander from Norway last year, who had a very similar style of song, it might feel a bit more accessible. He also needs to get rid of the guitar. Half the time he wasn’t really playing it and the other half it looked like it was just getting in the way of any action he wanted to do. I think the 2 backing singers do a grand job but I feel they could also encourage the crowd more with some actions or clapping to create a visual hook to the song. All in all, I think this is quite a good song and a radio-friendly up tempo number. Looking at the other countries voting in that semi I feel this should qualify with little trouble

ARTIST –  Gromee feat. Lukas Meijer

SONG – Light me up

MUSIC - Andrzej Gromala, Lukas Meijer

LYRICS - Mahan Moin, Christian Rabb