Smak at Belgrade Arena Dec 16: Two Drum Kits and Sons
Tocak, Kepa and Zoran Milanovic take the Belgrade Arena stage with singers Najda and Jovan Pantic, plus sons on bass and drums.
Two drum kits will stand on the stage of Belgrade Arena on December 16, and that is not a technical footnote but half the story of this concert. Alongside founder Slobodan Stojanovic Kepa, his son Dejan Stojanovic Kepa Jr. will sit behind the drums, joined by Marko Stojanovic, while bassist Zoran Milanovic will share the stage with his son Filip, also a bassist. Organizers today announced the full lineup of Smak, which makes it clear that people will go to this show not only for the songs but also for who plays them.
Who is on the Arena stage?
Until today, it was known that the band would be led by guitarist Radomir Mihailovic Tocak. Now the rest is known too. Beside him are two fellow founders, drummer Slobodan Stojanovic Kepa and bassist Zoran Milanovic, and around the original trio stands an expanded lineup:
- singers Dejan Najdanovic Najda, the band’s longtime voice, and Jovan Pantic, whose voice the announcement describes as recalling the late Boris Arandjelovic
- second guitar: Milan Milosavljevic Mikica
- keyboards: Dejan Zdravevski Deki
- bass: Filip Milanovic, son of Zoran Milanovic
- drums: Dejan Stojanovic Kepa Jr., son of Slobodan Stojanovic Kepa, and Marko Stojanovic, whom the announcement lists in the same line of successors
- backing vocals: Ana, Pera and Trnda
On Pantic, it is worth reading exactly what is claimed. The voice of Boris Arandjelovic is tied to the songs that will be played, and the announcement does not say anyone is replacing him, only that the timbre of the new singer brings back a memory of him.
What will they play, and under what name?
The announcement mentions the songs “Daire,” “Crna dama,” “Sumadijski bluz,” “Ulazak u harem” and “Ljudi, nije fer.” An earlier announcement, in June, presented the concert as “SMAK Susret generacija” (Meeting of Generations), organized by Music Star, and at that point “Blues u parku” was also named among the songs. The title now takes on a literal meaning: generations meet not only in the audience but on the stage itself.
Smak’s Belgrade audience is no stranger to big venues. The band played the Arena in 2012, and in 2015 at Usce, where, according to an earlier report by Mond, about 20,000 people watched the concert. How much the new lineup will change the band’s sound, the announcement cannot show. That is a question for December 16.
Tickets
Tickets are sold at Ticket Vision outlets and on tickets.rs. The published announcements do not list prices.
