Goran Bregovic - from the Balkans, with love

I found out Thursday that Goran Bregovic was going to perform the following day in Toronto, as part of the Luminato festival. I won't waste time describing how surprised and ecstatic I was, because I have better things to write about. Like - the actual concert!! (Wish I could talk about it too, but I think I lost my voice after all that yelling).
I made it to Dundas Square last night about an hour before the scheduled starting time. A bunch of people were there already, but nothing crazy. I knew that by the time Goran would go up on stage, this place would be packed. It's how we, Eastern Europeans, roll: you're lucky if we show up 1 minute before something starts. I couldn't see the rationale when my friend requested me to show up an hour and a half earlier, to get good spots... But I put aside the very very important things I had to do in that time, and made it to the square. Only to get a call from my friend letting me know she was RUNNING LATE! Like... an hour!

If you should know anything about E-Europeans, then it's this: we are always late. And we will not apologize for it, ok? it's just the way things are -we don't care much about the essence of time... Goran, being the Balkanian that he is, was also late - this is how things balance out in the end: we’re all late, so we’re all on time, make sense?

Given that I had some time to spare, I grabbed a coffee and made my way to a good place close to the stage. And, as I stopped and looked around at the crowd, I had this feeling of belonging, of being at home. I was surrounded by tall, beautiful people. Some of them freakishly tall. Some of them freakishly beautiful. Must be something in Europe’s water, or air, or mountains. Most of them spoke Serbian (I am guessing, as I cannot understand it), and then a few were Romanians. I also heard some Spanish around me, and I was intrigued to have beside me a South Asian guy, who jumped and danced and clapped all throughout the concert.
I hadn’t realized before what a large appeal Goran could possibly have. His catchy tunes are danceable enough for the Latinos, while his gypsy-inspired chants parallel ancient Indian songs, and speak even to Arabs.

The show started with a string quartet, playing something rather sad, and a bit too studied in comparison with Bregovic`s famous improvisations. But soon the trumpets, trombone, and tarragot responded from within the crowd. The public cheered and clapped in anticipation, until the entire Wedding and Funeral Orchestra, as well as Goran Bregovic were all on stage. And so off they went, with their explosive, syncopated, vibrant sound.

They had a few short "breaks" from the upbeat songs, allowing the players to relax, and the crowd to cool down. Their two female singers would inundate the square with beautiful, melodious traditional songs that resembled a type of mourning, grieving melody known to Romanians as doina. It is, after all the Wedding AND Funeral Orchestra. But people beside me yelled " veselo!" - I knew what that meant: "happier", and others rattled tambourines they had brought along for the concert. So Goran delivered: Gas Gas, Spij kochany, Mesecina, Maki Maki, Ya ya ringe ringe ra, Prostitutke, Artileria, So Nevo Si, In the death car, Bijav…

Dundas Square was pulsating with the drum's beats. People were all singing along; I knew a few to none of the lyrics, but that did not matter. I knew enough: “a-ahaa-aaa” to Goran’s Ringe Ringe Raja, “Charge!” and “bum bum bum” in Kalashnikov, “sao Roma babo babo” at their Ederlezi, “Artileria“ at Goran‘s cue, "Mexico, Mexico" at Bijav... I drove people around me mad with my loud yelling, obnoxious dancing, jumping, and clapping my hands up high.
A few more catchy tunes and everybody was dancing and singing along - even the people who sent me a few evil looks when I accidentally stepped on their toes, or bags, or even elbowed them. An hour or so into the show everything was acceptable; we were all a bit like family. Even myself, I got over the fact that people kept walking through the crowd, telling you they’re trying to reach some friends, and stopping right in front of you - did I already mention how they were all tall?!! Because the guy behind me had a bag at his feet, I had this lady technically in my arms, without being able to stand back, nor dance for 20 minutes. I felt like it was time for us to share some intimate secrets, we were so close…
Another friend of mine, a musician himself, was trying to move in to get a good picture of his idol. I smiled, as he was making his way past me, but this lady next to me asked: “are you serious????” At which he replied: “No, no, I’m not”. Oh, bless his heart, for he spoketh the truth: we, Balcanians, we are not serious. We are crazy, passionate, terribly and irreversibly melancholic, exuberant, wild, tender, friendly and rude at the same time, loud and soft, irrational and eclectic. Just like Goran’s music.
It seizes to surprise me that we all connect to his songs, although some of us don’t even understand a word he’s saying. He collected bits and pieces from all of us, and is now presenting them back to us in his unique, genius-touched style. I recognized in his Maki Maki the chorus from Romanian Maria Tanase’s “Bun ii vinul ghiurghiuliu” (“White wine tastes so good”), while Kalashnikov uses a bit of Romanian “Ciocarlia” (composed by George Enescu, with inspiration form Romanian traditional songs). There have never been any copyright lawsuits. It’s the way it always was: music is shared from village to village, from region to region, from neighbouring country to neighbouring country. One of Romanians’ most beloved traditional dances is sarba, the Serbian dance. I haven’t heard any Serbian complaining.
The dialogue between our cultures has started such a long time ago, and Goran does the marvellous work of capturing and preserving voices from a distant past. The last song performed at the encore was especially representative of this characteristic: the men’s choir chanted and sang as if souls of the people who travelled to the Promised Land, the two women joined them softly, soothing their anguish, and the rest of the band simply completed the mystic ritual that is Bregovic’s music. I looked around at the stores, and giant TV screens, and commercial ads posted up high on the square’s buildings. I wondered how these symbols of consumerism did not shiver and fall at the sight of such an original performance.