Brkovi Play Belgrade Port Tonight, Debut Duga Devetka Live

The gates of the Open Air Corner at Belgrade Port open tonight at 7 p.m., and an hour later the stage belongs to a band whose name has been said in the same breath as punk, folk and a dose of common sense that the two genres rarely share, for more than two decades now: Brkovi. A ticket priced at 3,000 dinars, available at points of sale and through the Gigstix platform, buys an evening in which nine songs from the new album will stand shoulder to shoulder with old hits, with breaks between numbers short enough to keep the crowd from cooling off. The show is organized by SOU BIZZ DOO.

The Belgrade concert doubles as the domestic live launch of Duga Devetka, an album that, like every one before it, came out entirely outside the record label system and is available only on the band’s official YouTube channel and on streaming services. The nine songs on the band’s ninth studio release were produced by Ivan Mihaljevic, and the album was preceded by the singles Labavi, Nasa Mala Zemlja, Moj Prijatelj Je Postao Zena and Novi Bon Jovi. The visual side of the release was handled by frontman Shamso69, working alone or in co direction with Alen Vlajnic, with production by HUI HUI.

With this release, Brkovi are marking more than twenty years of existence, over which they coined their own genre label, punkfolkwellness, a mix of punk, turbofolk and rock in which the irony is already built into the name. Judging by everything the band has said about the new record so far, that formula has not changed: speed, raw sound and lyrics that do not shy away from everyday life, even when everyday life is less flattering than some might want to hear in a song.

The decision to put out the ninth album on their own, with no label behind it, is not just a logistical detail but part of the same outlook that has kept the band outside the mainstream for two decades. A band that builds its sound at the meeting point of folk melodies and punk energy could hardly count on a conventional record deal, so independence here reads less as a marketing move than as a necessity turned into a trademark. The same logic applies to the choice of venue: instead of the usual club, Brkovi are playing outdoors tonight, at Belgrade Port’s Open Air Corner, a format that allows for a far bigger crowd than any Belgrade club could hold, while at the same time asking the band to carry energy built indoors out onto a stage facing the river.

Ahead of the concert, frontman Shamso69 said this about the new album:

“I really like the album, and I’m satisfied with how everything turned out in the end. There’s enough time before the big concert at Belgrade Port on September 12 for people to learn the lyrics to the new songs, and I can’t wait for us to make some noise together!”

The satisfaction in that statement is easy to understand: the ninth album, by all accounts so far, confirms the direction the band is taking regardless of whether the industry follows or not. About the city and the audience, Shamso69 added this as well:

“Belgrade has always been a city where we understand each other well with the audience, which is why we’re especially excited about the concert at Belgrade Port. We’ve prepared new songs, old favorites and enough noise to make September 12 one to remember for a long time!”

Opening for Brkovi is Mira Aleksic with her band, who will give the first live performance of material from her debut studio album. Her blend of folk and pop singing with hard rock and metal sound is no accidental choice of opening act for a band that built its own career on a similar, if rougher, genre collision. If Brkovi prove that punk and folk can share a stage without conflict, tonight Mira Aleksic arrives with her own version of the same experiment, just from the other side of the genre fence.

The set is arranged so that the nine songs from Duga Devetka get a chance to stand alongside numbers Brkovi were already playing before the album was even conceived. For a band that has survived outside the system for two decades, that is the best possible test: whether the new songs sound like a continuation of what is already known, or like a turn worth paying attention to.