Years active 1966 – 1967 Genre Rock music | Location Belgrade | |
Founded by TV novosti, Večernje novosti, PGP-RTB Similar Village Fair, Atlantic City Pop Festival, Powder Ridge Rock Fest, Festival of Political Songs, Jazz Bilzen | ||
Gitarijada (Serbian Cyrillic: Гитаријада, trans. Guitar Fest) was a musical festival held in Belgrade, Serbia, at the time part of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The first edition of the festival was held in 1966, and second and the last in 1967. The festival was one of the first rock festivals in Yugoslavia and considered one of the most notable events in the early days of Yugoslav rock music.
Contents
1966
The first edition of the festival was organized by the magazine TV novosti, the newspaper Večernje novosti and the record label PGP-RTB. The festival's slogan was: "TV novosti daju šansu električarima" ("TV novosti Offer a Chance to Electric Bands"). It had a competitive character. More than 100 bands from all parts of Yugoslavia applied for the partaking, 56 of them being chosen to perform on Gitarijada. The festival was held in Belgrade Fair – Hall 1. It included three dates: the first semi-final evening was on January 6, the second semi-final evening on January 9, and the final evening on February 13. The jury consisted of Stevan Markićević (the musical editor of Radio Belgrade), Borivoje Pavlović (Radio Belgrade journalist), Mladen Maslić (musician), Danilo Vasić (musician), Aleksandar Vujisić (musician), Jovan Popaz (musician) and Dragan Jelasić (boxer).
The first eight finalists were, ranked by the jury in the following order: Bele Višnje, Siluete, Indexi, Rubinsi, Iskre, Beduini, Dinamiti and Tomi Sovilj i Njegove Siluete. More than 5,000 people attended the first evening of the festival, a large part of them carrying banners with messages of support for their favorite bands. On the second semi-final evening, also attended by several thousands spectators, the jury chose eight other bands, ranking them in the following order: Elipse, Bomiko, Veseli Dečaci, Idoli, Plavi Dečaci, Smeli, Plamenih 5, Kristali. In the finals, attended by about 15,000 people, the jury chose eight bands as the best, ranking them in the following order: Elipse, Siluete, Plamenih 5, Indexi, Iskre, Smeli, Bele Višnje, Plavi Dečaci, Veseli Dečaci, Rubinsi. The audience got the chance to vote for the best band, polling Siluete.
On March 3, in Belgrade Youth Center, an exhibition of photographs from the festival by famous photographer Tomislav Peternek was set. The exhibition was entitled Koncert od 100 fotografja (The 100 Photographs Concert).
Reactions
As one of the first rock festivals and one of the first large rock concerts in Yugoslavia, Gitarijada caused various reactions of the public.
The TV stations broadcast footage from Gitarijada, including scenes of boys taking off their shirts and waving them high above their heads and girls dancing ecstatically. The newspaper Politika wrote:
A text in the magazine Ilustrovana Politika claimed that a part of young people were persuaded, or even paid by film director Dušan Makavejev, who wanted to make footage for one of his films, to act ecstatically, and that he gave them rattles, whistles, wigs and other props.
Dr. Aleksandar Kostić, in the text "Naši domaći Bitlsi" ("Our Own Beatles"), published in NIN, wrote:
The literary magazine Književne novine wrote:
On the other hand, the newspaper Borba, the official newspaper of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, published an article with a different view:
Mladost, an official newspaper of the League of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia, published an article which stated:
Other magazines that wrote positively about the performers and the audience included Ilustrovana Politika and economical magazine Ekonomska politika. The magazine Duga conducted a questionnaire entitled "Gitarijada: da ili ne" ("Guitar Fest: Yes or No"). The people asked for opinion included experts from various fields: university professors, neuropsychiatrists, magistrates, most of them rejecting the idea of rock music being harmful for the youth and the society.
Only a small a number of reactions concerned the actual quality of the bands' performances. The music magazine Džuboks criticized the singing of the most of the bands, stating that the members of only several bands sang perfectly.
1967
The second edition of the festival was held in Belgrade Fair – Hall 1 on January 23, 1967. More than one hundred bands applied for the partaking, with aboout thirty of them selected. More than 13,000 spectators attended the event. The jury pronounced Crni Biseri, Delfini and Siluete the best bands respectively, while the audience polled Plavi Dečaci, Džentlmeni and Vesnici the best. The bands Elipse, Siluete and Plamenih 5 performed in the non-competitive part, as the winners of the previous Gitarijada.
Legacy
The first edition of Belgrade Gitarijada is considered one of the milestones in the history of Yugoslav rock music. Although a large number of bands performed, released records and had radio and television appearances in the years before Gitarijada, although rock concerts and rock festivals were organized prior to this festival, Gitarijada is considered the event which revealed how large the popularity of rock music among the youth was, and that rock music is not just a fad among young people of Yugoslavia. It was after the first Belgrade Gitarijada that a rock band performed for Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito for the first time: it was the winner of Gitarijada, Elipse, on May 24, 1966. Historian Aleksandar Raković stated that before 1966, rock music in Yugoslavia "ensured itself with 'citizenship', being tolerated in every way", but that Gitarijada represents the point in which "the phenomenon of rock and roll was fully understood, and the structures of the [Communist] Party and youth organizations got the task to study it from a professional point". Authors Željko Fajfrić and Milan Nenad, in the book Istorija YU rock muzike od početaka do 1970. (History of Yugoslav Rock Music from Its Beginning to 1970) wrote: "Up until then, it [rock music] was maybe a caprice, maybe who-knows-what, but always only a fad, and now, after this Gitarijada, it was something else, it was a part of the society, a part which could be marginalized, but not forgotten."