The World now has a new record in ticket sales for a single music concert event and that record has been achieved in Croatia, for its highly popular singer Marko Perkovic Thompson concert to be held 6 July 2025 at the Zagreb Hippodrome/Horse Racing track grounds. History in the making! With the ticket sales website crashing due to popular demand for tickets during the past week, then quickly reinstated, the concert at the 47-hectare horse racing track has sold an impressive 281,774 tickets in less than 24 hours – making it the highest-attended single concert on record, beating by far the likes of Vasco Rossi solo concert July 1, 2017, at the Parco Enzo Ferrari in Modena, which sold 225,173 tickets, Bijelo Digme/ White Button band in June 2005 on Belgrade Hippodrome sold 220,000 tickets, Paul McCartney in 1990 in Rio with 184,000 tickets sold, and Tina Turner January 16, 1988 in Rio de Janeiro sold 180,000 tickets, Frank Sinatra Live on 26 January 1980 sold 175,000 tickets, Bruce Springsteen concert in Berlin on 19 July 1988 sold 160,000 tickets, Japanese Glay in Chiba city near Tokyo on 31 July 1990 sold 200,000 tickets. And the list of single concerts topped by Marko Perkovic Thompson goes on among the most popular music artists of both the “West” and the “East” parts of planet Earth. And it appears that the Thompson concert to be staged in Zagreb on 5 July 2025 will not stop at 281,774 sold, which is the capacity of the horse racetrack grounds. An application has reportedly been made by the Thompson management team to the city of Zagreb for an extension of the attendee number by another 100,000 or so. The grounds around the Hippodrome could apparently be designated for additional capacity. We wait for the unfolding of this extraordinary story of, by all accounts, patriotic community spirit manifested by attendances at a music concert.
(Update on 4 April 2025 the ticket sales office Entrio in Croatia has released a statement that further 150,000 tickets have been sold within 6 hours of release, as application to extend numbers was successful, and it is expected that more than 500,000 tickets will be sold for the concert in Zagreb Hippodrome on 5 July 2025. Such a record takes my breath away with joyous awe!)
Marko Perković – known professionally as Thompson rose to the highest of popularity music charts in Croatia, and the diaspora, with his song “Bojna Čavoglave” (Battalion Cavoglave) in late 1991 when former Yugoslav Army and Serb aggression against Croatia turned into a vicious and brutal war of ethnic cleansing of Croats from their homes, genocide, murder, plunder and rape. As the song opened with the historic Croatian chant “Za dom spremni!” (for homeland ready) it undoubtedly contributed significantly to the determination of Croatian soldiers and volunteers in defending Croatia. Freedom from communist Yugoslavia became the “to be or not to be” pursuit of all Croatian patriots.
As political cruel and dirty play would have it, the opening chant of the song was labelled as the Croatian version of the Nazi salute “Sieg Heil”. Of course, by former communists and their allies operating under nostalgia for communist Yugoslavia drive. Croatia was gloriously victorious in this most brutal of wars of aggression and while the armed conflict with the Serb armed aggressor ended in the military operation “Storm” in August of 1995, which liberated much of the Serb-occupied territory around the town of Knin, the Homeland war fully ended in early 1998 with the peaceful reintegration into Croatia of the Serb-occupied Podunavlje region (Eastern Slavonia, South Baranja and West Syrmia regions). Thompson’s “Battalion Cavoglave” song was still spinning at the top of the music charts, now becoming a kind of a patriotic reassurance for continued patriotism and values of freedom and democracy, achieved in blood and thousands of lives. Not to speak of overwhelming destruction of Croatian Catholic churches, cultural monuments, thousands of homes, towns and villages, turned into rubble. In December 1999 Croatia’s first president, Franjo Tudjman, died from a terminal illness. With his death Croatian patriotism became the victim of Yugoslav communist barbarism, once again. Former League of Communists, renamed into Social Democratic Party, won the parliamentary elections early in year 2000 and former president of communist Yugoslavia, Stjepan Mesic, won at the presidential elections. This swing away from the patriotic, conservative electorate mood was undoubtedly due to the lies about Tudjman and Croatia’s Homeland War spread across the world by Stjepan Mesic, especially. He and the former Yugoslav communists had branded Tudjman as an autocrat and criminalised Croatia’s Homeland War (including his anti-Croatia testimony in the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague, 1998). With such changes in political pursuits in Croatia, which meant the bringing down and dismantling of Croatia’s War of Independence (Homeland War) values at all levels of government and power, Marko Perkovic Thompson, his songs, suffered also. Concert bans started creeping in.
Politics and crime have often not been strangers and the totalitarian Yugoslav communism would “take the cake” in this by anyone’s standards. In August 2019, the High Misdemeanour Court of the Republic of Croatia issued a final judgment condemning the shouting of the chant “Za dom spremni” (For Homeland Ready) with which the song Battalion Cavoglave begins. However, it was not Marko Perkovic Thompson who was punished, but Mario Roso, the singer who performed Thompson’s song at a performance. The court’s explanation for the judgment stated that Roso was being punished because he shouted the official salute of the Ustasha movement of the World War Two Independent State of Croatia/NDH, which originated from fascism and was based on racism. Thus, this salute symbolises hatred towards people of different races, religious and ethnic identities, the court said. The fact that the chant “Za dom spremni” was several centuries old in Croatia by the time World War Two started in 1941 did not factor at all in this court’s consideration! Marko Perkovic Thompson then stood his ground and lodged an Appeal on this judgment to the court and in June 2020 the Court of High Misdemeanours in Zagreb ruled that he did not violate public order and breach the peace with his use of the chant “Za dom spremni” in his song Battalion Cavoglave. There have been other litigation attempts in Croatia since about 2015 targeting bans and criminalisation on the use of the chant “For Homeland Ready” but none have in finality succeeded to label the “Za dom spremni” chant as equivalent to Nazi “Sieg Heil”. Perhaps because part of Croatia’s defence mechanism from Yugoslav Army and Serb aggression in the 1990’s was a large paramilitary defence force HOS (Croatian Defence Forces) had on its coat of arms the chant “Za dom spremni”!? And yet the chant itself and Thompson in particular are under constant oppression, harassment and bans.
A nation is akin to a living organism and awareness, territory, history and culture, language and religion all matter. In May of 1991 at the Independence from communist Yugoslavia Referendum 93.24% of Croatian voters said Yes to secession, yes to independence. This overwhelmingly strong momentum against communist, totalitarian Yugoslavia has gradually and apparently waned since the year 2000. Voter turnout at elections has become dismal, at best. From the perspective of parliamentary and Presidential elections the so-called silent majority has evidently and substantially increased in size and, therefore, in political clout. Thompson’s gradual comeback to the live musical concert scene during the past decade, despite concert bans in some cities, has been both sensational and glorious. Although his 2004 song “How beautiful you are” – referring to Croatia, has become something of a national anthem sung at many events and gatherings, it is his newest songs such as “If you don’t know what happened” – referring to Homeland War (2024), and “Unread letter” (2025) – referring to the letter written by Crotian patriotic hero written on 29 April 1671 to his wife Katarina the night before his execution for the alleged treason of Austrian Emperor Leopold I that seem to have reignited the public expression and manifestation of patriotic sentiment in Croatia, once again. While his concerts in Croatia during 2024 had, reaching over 100,000 tickets sold in some individual events, surpassed all previous ticket sales of any musical artist performing in Croatia, even Ed Sheeran who sold some 70,000 tickets for August 2024 concert at the Hippodrome, it is the Thompson’s Zagreb Hippodrome concert in July this year that holds the promise of an unprecedented show of patriotic strength and solidarity not only in Croatia but also in terms of Global spread.
Among the various cultural phenomena that serve to galvanise national identity and keep that organism breathing, Marko Perkovic Thompson’s concerts are emerging as indisputable key events that ignite expressions of Croatian pride and patriotism. It’s almost impossible to overestimate Thompson’s contribution to the nurturing Croatian patriotism. The rich opus of his songs often draws on themes of courage, sacrifice, and a deep-rooted connection to the Croatian land, resonating with a population that has faced external pressures and conflicts for centuries. The now world record of ticket sales for a single event reflects not only a passion for music, but also a collective assertion of national pride. The joyous and emotional revelling at his concerts underscores a sense of unity and belonging, strengthening connections to a shared past, that has seen a great deal of suffering and oppression, and a hopeful future. If only that energy could be harnessed for a final showdown with the former Yugoslav communists and their destructive forces that aggressively and hatefully engage in the smothering to the oblivion the values of Croatia’s fight for independence and self-determination. Ina Vukic
Croatia, the War, and the Future 
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