Deca iz vode play Nova Zappa Barka in Belgrade on 10 October from 8pm, and the concert is billed as a night of remembrance for Milan, Magi, Bojan and VD. Four names from the band that changed what rock meant in eighties Yugoslavia.

This is not another tribute act playing somebody else's songs. Deca iz vode is the only project dedicated to Ekatarina Velika assembled in the same line-up as the original band, and that is exactly why former EKV members keep turning up on stage with them. The guest list includes drummer Srdjan Zika Todorovic from the 1987-90 line-up, Ivan Rankovic Raka from 1985-87, bassist Bole Stanojevic from 1994 and backing vocalist Tanja Jovicevic from 1989-93. When the people who recorded the original records walk out on stage with a tribute band, the word tribute starts to mean something else.

Milan Mladenovic, the frontman whose voice remained EKV's trademark, died on 5 November 1994 at thirty-six, three months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The band he led produced material that three decades on still does not sound dated, which is rare for music this tied to one specific time and place. It is also why these concerts are not half-empty halls full of fifty-somethings, but crowds that include people who never saw Mladenovic alive.

The band tours the region regularly, Skopje included, where they played with Zika and Tanja in a big arena. The Belgrade night at Nova Zappa Barka comes with an afterparty and an ex-Yu rock DJ set once the concert ends, which means the evening does not stop with the last song.

Tickets through tickets.rs start at 1,200 dinars, roughly 630 denars. For a catalogue people sing by heart from the Vardar to the Sava, the price is close to symbolic.