Even Less To Do With Belgrade

Estavisti wants a new post, and I have been back for a week, so here's a quick miscellany. One might have thought that Belgrade should have provided as many opportunities for a post as the Gazette's trip to Ljubljana last year did: and it did, but most of them were of the 'Arrange in ascending likelihood of a secret affair: Rebeka Dremelj, Željko Joksimović, Toše Proeski, and Anna Vissi' variety, and other Svet-type snippets.

Flamingosi, the Serbian Eurovision-representatives-who-weren't following the collapse of Evropesma, continue to be ubiquitous (a new B-side version of the song replaces its list of European capitals with cities in Serbia and Montenegro: 'Šabac, Kotor, Novi Sad / Podgorica, Beograd'), despite the fact that - political significance aside - Ludi letnji ples is what people who don't watch Eurovision think Eurovision is like.

That would be unlike the British chav anthem, the fake German country band, or the Finnish metal band in monster masks then, Catherine?

Point taken. So, continuing the Gazette's main theme for spring, the Severina/Let 3 Moja štikla video has been around for a while, in case you want to watch her chasing them around Zagreb with her štiklama. The Letovci had their own moment in the spotlight last weekend at the annual Porin award ceremony, winning two awards for the best rock album and the best video, and performing Ero s onoga svijeta wearing even higher-cut versions of Severina's Štikla dress. (Continuing their parody of showbusiness folk music and hypermasculinity, the song's their version of the final kolo from Jakov Gotovac's Dinaric opera which was also adapted by Marko Perković Thompson into the middle eight of his Geni kameni.)

Ivan Mikulić, meanwhile, attempted to outdo the lot of them by appearing on Melodije Mostara with fifty dancers in folkloric costumes to accompany him on Igraj, igraj, nemoj stat' (Dance, dance, don't stop). Večernji list comments that 'he did it in the style of Severina, using mainly elements of ethno-music and the rich choreography of numerous backing vocalists in national costumes.'

Some day soon, there'll be a point where even the Gazette is asking how much more ethno-choreography it can take...