Vaidotas Valiukevičius is the leading singer of the recently famous pop rock band ‘The Roop’, who previously used the stage nickname ‘Milano’.

After finishing the secondary school, Vaidotas started studying and in the summer before his studies he worked in construction. Of course, the work did not meet the musician’s expectations, but the reason was important – he really wanted to earn money and start recording his songs in Klaipėda. ‘When I came to the Lithuanian music worlds, I was 19 years old,’ Vaidotas says. In 2008, there was a turning point in the musician’s career, which coincided with the economic crisis – the singer had a sharp decline in concerts and he realized that something had to be changed if he wanted to continue playing music, to improve his stage image and concert program. It was a great opportunity to leave everything for a while and try to understand what he really wants.

Vaidotas' first acquaintance with the current members of ‘The Roop’ remained memorable. As soon as he introduced himself with his stage nickname ‘Milano’, one of the band members commented that he did not want to play with him, but in the end everything went perfectly. The three members of the new group already had experience in the music industry, which did not cause any major problems. After creating the group, all they had to do was come up with a name. "The Roop" comes from the English word to roop, which means to shout or make a lot of noise, which fits perfectly with the band's style of music.

The group's decision to participate in the national Eurovision selection received many negative and positive comments, but after the song "On Fire" won the national selection, the group gathered a large group of fans and Lithuanians believed that they could even win Eurovision. Unfortunately, due to the COVID - 19 pandemic, Eurovision 2020 was cancelled. As the song was a great success, the band took part in the national Eurovision Song Contest this year, which they won again. In the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest in Rotterdam, ‘The Roop’ made it to the finals and took 8th place. This is the second best result of Lithuania during all the years of Lithuanian musicians' participation in Eurovision.

But we consider Vaidotas to be the hero of the nation not because of the high achievement of the group in the competition, but because of the ability to mobilize the country in the ‘Yellow Wave’ movement during such a difficult pandemic period. The performer himself is very eccentric and always tries to stand out from the crowd. One of the proofs is that the group's outfit chosen for the competition is bright yellow. A large part of Europe was extremely interested in this image and soon the "Yellow Wave" appeared on social networks. People dressed in yellow and various companies, kindergartens, families danced to the group's song "Discoteque" and shared records on social networks. Yellow colour is known to transmit energy, positivity and it is named as the colour of harmony and security.

Thus, during this difficult period, the ‘Yellow Wave’ united the whole Lithuania and was like a ray of sunshine, warming people's hearts and allowing them to forget about the pandemic for a while and believe that we will return to normal life someday.