Milance, 82, Cries at Fourth Sold-Out Tasmajdan Show

Milance Radosavljevic (82) held his fourth consecutive sold-out concert at Tasmajdan on September 3, with Dragana Mirkovic as the evening’s special guest. The singer broke down from emotion on stage, the concert paused briefly, and afterward he described how it felt to hear the crowd singing along with him line for line.

Milance has 65 years of career behind him, and the run of Tasmajdan concerts started modestly before growing into something he himself says he never expected. The orchestra was conducted by Aleksandar Sofronijevic, known as Sofra, who is the singer’s biggest support off stage. Tickets for the fourth show sold out fast, just like for the previous three, and Tasmajdan was once again packed to the last seat.

From the stage, the singer addressed the crowd while barely holding back tears.

Thank you for coming. These are my nights, the nights of my life, this is hard to get through, thank you so much! My motto for tonight is: Tas is ours!

Speaking to reporters after the show, Milance admitted he could hardly compose himself after the performance.

• I broke down, I could barely pull myself back together, the hardest part is getting back on your feet, the singer said.
• The emotions are stronger than me, I live for music, he added.

Milance also announced that the concerts are not stopping, and that he plans to keep going until winter, though one city in particular gives him stage fright.

• I’m dreading Novi Sad, that’s the place where I’ve sung the least, he admitted.

Sofronijevic, who brought him onto the big stage in the first place, says it is time Milance received the recognition he has been owed for decades.

He is now where he should be, I think we have corrected a historic injustice, the conductor said after the performance.

The surprise guest of the night was Dragana Mirkovic, whom Milance described as a longtime friend who, he says, has been inviting him onto her show for years.

Sources differ on the exact date and occasion behind the tears on stage. Kurir and Grand report that the emotional moment happened at the fourth concert itself, on September 3, during Dragana Mirkovic’s appearance. Telegraf, however, reported the evening before, at 9:08 p.m. on September 2, that Milance had stopped his performance and cried when he addressed, from the stage, the family of the late Saban Sauljic, whose widow Goca Sauljic was sitting in the audience with their daughters Ilda and Sanela. He said at the time:

I want to greet Goca Sauljic and both daughters who are here, Ilda and Sanela. It hurts me deeply whenever I mention Saban, it pains me, we were true friends.

According to the available sources, then, the two emotional scenes belong to two different nights of the same concert series, not to the same performance.

We previously wrote about the third Tasmajdan concert and the announcement that Novi Sad would follow, and Milance now says he intends to go station by station, city by city, until the end of the year. He says he never had grand ambitions, that he lives modestly, and that this series of concerts serves as confirmation of 65 years of work rather than a moment he once believed would ever come.

The crowd sent him off with thunderous applause once again this evening, and the scene with the tears, according to media who were on site, remained for a long time the most memorable moment of the concert night at Tasmajdan.