The national selection show "Eurovizijos dainų konkurso nacionalinė atranka" consists in four quarter-finals where roughly half the acts are eliminated each week and two semi-finals each provide four contestants selected for the final, with a jury/televote voting system. The fourth quarter-final was aired on 2nd February.
On the day of the fourth quarter-final, the official Twitter account of Lithuania’s national selection announced that the 7th contestant in Heat 4, Gabrielė Rybko, would automatically get 0 points from the televote “as her father offered people discounts and kids’ toys in order to get votes”. The Twitter account specified that the performer had broken rule 28 of Eurovizijos Nacionalinė Atranka. The management had thus come to the conclusion that the performance would be shown but that voting for her would be banned. Major drama.
At the end of every performance the camera would show the audience sitting and clapping politely. All in all a very civilised affair. In bold are the performances that went through to either semi-final.
Valerija Iljinaitė "Scars Are Beautiful”: a dark start to the show. Valerija kicks off with a whispered speech in Globish which refers to scarification. She pays tribute to the philosophy of Camus (“life is a battlefield”) while a blonde emo contortionist struts in the background.
Indrė Juodeikienė "Bad Option”: fun fast-food pop with a young skinny female solo artist and a pasty male dancer with high cheekbones and a strong jawline baring his hairless chest.
Alen Chicco "Your Cure": queer and dark. A bald androgynous male singer with striking make-up and boots emerges out of the darkness as a female dancer trying to be butch counteracts and mirrors the singer’s presence. Tones of black and red dominate the screen. Probably a song about the pains of life without love when one does not feel true to oneself.
Queens of Roses "Runaway”: Spice Girls meet Chris de Burgh. Five ladies in red defiantly repeating the title-word.
Živilė Gedvilaitė "Learn from Your Love: reminiscences of Denmark 2017 and Spain 2015. Not too bad, actually.
Elizabeth Olshey "Never Enough (Of Your Love)": throwback to the 90’s. Cheap, efficient, fun. Love it.
Gabrielė Rybko "Lay It Down”: poor thing. Decent effort, though.
Saulės Kliošas "Laiko mašina”: cool outfit, forgettable song.
Soliaris & Foreign Souls "Song of My Life": oh dear. No.
Monika Marija "Light On": an elegant power ballad with an upbeat tempo urging us to “leave the light on” in these dark times. White dress, silver earrings and screens behind the solo artist which are moved by the backing singers. Her left earphone popped out but she remained professional. Not the same Monika Marija as the one who sang in Heat 3.
Henry & Tommy Modric "Neverpart": a smooth jazz optimistic claim that we will “neverpart” (that’s not a word) by two guileless men trying to match business suits with bowties, a red rose and a white rose.