24 Jun THIEVERY CORPORATION, RUNDEK, ANA POPOVIĆ… SCARED AWAY THE RAIN AND SET THE ARSENAL’S ATTENDANCE RECORD!

Arsenal has set his own attendance record Friday, with 12.000 people coming to see Thievery Corporation, Darko Rundek, Ana Popović, Repetitor, Brkovi, Pero Defformero and many other performers that played on the second night of the festival’s seventh edition.
With the very first beats of Thievery Corporation’s instrumental piece The Forgotten People, the Main Stage became a dance arena. The audience was dancing along to each song, including the hits Until the Morning, Fight to Survive, The Richest Man in Babylonand Drop Your Guns. Heavy showers of rain didn’t manage to disperse the tightly packed crowd.
After Thievery Corporation, Darko Rundek had the honour to close the second night of program on the Main Stage, and what he delivered to the high-spirited, dancing audience were numerous hits from his successful solo career such as More, Ay Carmela, Ruke andApokalypso. The sole song from the repertoire of Haustor, Rundek’s former band, was Šejn – a new wave classic from 1985.

Before Thievery Corporation and Rundek, Ana Popović played – with exctatic response from the audience – her own brand of blues, infused with hard rock and occasional heavy metal elements. She fused many genres in her guitar playing, which also incorporated sections of classic rock hits, with AC/DC’s Black in Black being the most memorable.

Serbian alternative rock band Repetitor, the first act that played on Main Stage on Friday, also attracted a singnificant base of fans. Energetic performance of this Belgrade-based trio warmed up the atmosphere to the boiling point, paving the way for all other bands that followed that night. In a moment of exctasy, Repetitor’s frontman and guitarist Boris Vlastelica leapt from the concert stage onto the crowd below, continuing to play while his fans were carrying him on their shoulders.

On the Garden stage, it was a night of punk, punk-folk, folk-metal, grunge and alternative rock. Hillarious punk-folkers from Croatia, Brkovi, performed freshly released singles Boli me and Sudbina, and the fans made their usual craze in front of the stage, undeterred by the rain.

Shamso, the singer of Brkovi, was shouting “Long live Serbia” – in his own style – and for a couple of songs the band was joined on the stage by their friend Biške, the singer of Serbian folk-metalheads Pero Defformero. Soon after Pero Deformerro had entered the stage for their own gig, Shamso returned the favor by being their guest. The music of the former band tied in nicely with music of the later, and what Pero Deformerro delivered to the audience was a mixture of their well known songs: Silvana, Gotičarka, Ekstra, Došli smo do kraja puta…

The atmosphere was heated enough to keep the audience packed till the early morning hours, when Bjesovi finished the program.

Punkreas, a band from Nikšić, Montenegro, and the first that played on the Garden Stage on Friday – still during daylight – used their 20 minutes of time to a good effect. Much more melodic band, Crveni karton, initiated the first pogo dance in front of the stage. The next to play was Larska, a powerful stoner/grunge act from Kragujevac with two bass players and a drummer. Zvoncekova bilježnica, a cult hardcore punk band from Aranđelovac, Serbia, incorporated to their set an effective punk cover of Azra’s classic Užas je moja furka, and finished their gig with Aluvijalne ravni.

The crowd at the Explosive DJ Stage stayed in high spirits till the dawn, listening and dancing to the music of B2B Ribić B2B White, Hunckie B2B Petar Lazović, Luka Vuković B2B Ivan Radojević, Markyz and Aleksandar Kowalski. Numerous up-and-coming bands introduced themselves on the Demolition Stage.

In front of the Main Stage, the audience was entertained, in between the sets, by a band of drummers, led by a veteran rock drummer and Serbian rock’n’roll great Dragoljub Đuričić.

The headliners of the third and final festival night will be Skinred, Dub FX, Rambo Amadeus and Goblini.