Haris Džinović at Arena Pula on August 14 - 40 years of career in a Roman amphitheatre

Haris Džinović fills the Pula Arena on August 14, and this is no ordinary concert in the run of summer visits along the Adriatic. The Bosnian singer marks the anniversary of 40 years in his career, and chose as his stage the Roman amphitheatre in Pula, a place shared every summer by world tours and Balkan stars.

Džinović was born in Sarajevo in 1951 and has been active on the music scene since 1981. Four decades later he is one of the most enduring names on the regional scene, a singer whose repertoire is known by heart even by people who never bought one of his records. "Ostarit ću, neću znati", "Muštuluk", "I tebe sam sit kafano" and "Pariške kapije" are not hits spun on radio out of nostalgia, but songs that still get an audience literally on its feet.

The organiser promises an evening of emotion and classic performances, with a precise running order rarely seen at Balkan concerts. Gates open at 19:30, Ivan Licul and his band play from 20:30, and Džinović takes the stage around 21:30. The audience at Arena Pula sits in an amphitheatre almost two thousand years old, which gives every concert there an acoustic and a picture no modern hall can replicate.

Tickets are sold through entrio.hr. For anyone in Skopje weighing up a trip to Istria, this is the end of the summer season at the Arena and one of the last big nights there before autumn. Anyone wanting to see Džinović in the form a band carries after forty years of playing together is unlikely to get another chance in Croatia this year.