Goran Bare & Majke returned to Zagreb's Šalata after more than seven years
Goran Bare & Majke performed on September 5, 2026, at Zagreb's Šalata, holding their only concert in the Croatian capital this year and returning to a major open-air performance in the city after more than seven years. The return to ŠRC Šalata carried additional significance because it followed a series of very well-attended and sold-out Zagreb concerts in different formats - from Arena Zagreb and two consecutive performances at Boogaloo to Boćarski dom. For months, the concert had been announced as one of Zagreb's central rock events at the beginning of September, and immediately before the performance, audience interest was so strong that the online ticket allocation had sold out. According to a 24sata report published on September 3, the organizers had left only one hundred tickets available at the entrance for visitors who had not managed to buy a ticket online. In this way, Bare and Majke's return to an open-air Zagreb stage took on the dimension of an event connecting the band's current phase with its long concert history.
Return to the site of the major 2019 concert
The last major performance by Goran Bare & Majke at Šalata before this year's concert took place on June 1, 2019, when the band concluded the concert cycle connected with the album "Side Effects" there. In its report at the time, Croatia Records stated that the concert lasted more than two and a half hours and that Šalata was filled to the last seat. A special feature of that performance was the collaboration with a large orchestra conducted by Alan Bjelinski, with arrangements by Ante Gelo, which gave individual songs a considerably broader production framework than Majke's usual concert sound. According to the same source, the repertoire at the time included songs from several periods of Bare's career, among them "Love Bleeds", "I'm Bleeding from Boredom", "Scarab Go-Go", "And You're Still Crying", "Heavy Colors", "Be Proud", "I Don't Care" and "Skinny Dog". Precisely because of that major concert in 2019, the return to Šalata in 2026 was not merely another tour date, but a return to a venue with which the band already has a strong concert connection.
The interval between the two performances at the same location amounts to more than seven years, and in the meantime both the concert context and the band's repertoire landscape have changed. Bare and Majke continued to perform regularly in Croatia and other countries of the region, but their major Zagreb concerts during that period were mostly associated with indoor halls and clubs. That is why Šalata 2026 marked a return to a format in which the audience stands under the open sky while the music is performed on a large city stage, without classic indoor acoustics and seating arrangements. For months, the organizers emphasized precisely that element - a return to a concert environment natural to the band and their only Zagreb performance in 2026. For an audience that has followed Bare through different phases of his career, such an event simultaneously carried the character of a retrospective and an introduction to a new studio chapter.
From Arena through Boogaloo and Boćarski dom to Šalata
The road toward the September 5 concert can be traced through several important Zagreb performances in recent years. Arena Zagreb officially recorded the concert by Goran Bare & Majke on December 22, 2023, which was the biggest date of their tour at the time. A year later, Bare and Majke marked forty years of creative work at the Boogaloo club on November 21 and 22, 2024, while HRT recalled at the time that the musical story of Majke had begun back in the mid-1980s. Two consecutive club concerts offered a different, more immediate atmosphere than the large Arena, but at the same time showed that interest in the band was not tied only to occasional large-scale productions. In October 2025, the sold-out Boćarski dom followed, where, according to reports after the concert, a selection of songs such as "I Don't Care", "Road to Happiness", "Love Bleeds" and "Heavy Colors" was performed in front of several thousand people.
That sequence of venues - the large Arena, the club-sized Boogaloo, the medium-sized Boćarski dom and then the open-air Šalata - shows how the concert audience of Goran Bare & Majke extends across different generations and formats. The band can function in a more intimate club, but also in a large hall or outdoors, with the production changing rather than the fundamental relationship between the songs and the audience. Ahead of Šalata, the organizers referred precisely to that continuity when highlighting the previously sold-out Zagreb performances. Regardless of venue size, the core of the repertoire remains a combination of Majke songs, Bare's later songwriting work and material created in different lineups. The return to Šalata can therefore be viewed as a logical continuation of the sequence, but also as a return to a symbolically important open-air venue after a long period without such a Zagreb concert.
Repertoire between classics and the new album "Deluge"
Ahead of the concert, 24sata reported that the program was conceived as a cross-section of all phases of the career, from earlier songs to more recent material. Particular attention was attracted by the announcement of songs from the forthcoming album with the working title "Deluge", on which Bare has been working intensively with Majke in recent months. The first released sign of this new cycle is the single "My Only One", which Croatia Records released at the end of 2025. At the time, the label presented the song as an announcement of a new studio album, while announcements immediately before Šalata stated that "Deluge" was still in preparation. This means that the Zagreb concert took place at a transitional moment: the band is already publicly presenting a new songwriting phase, but at the same time relies on a catalogue extending across more than four decades.
Such a combination of new and old is particularly important for performers whose concert identity and studio discography are strongly connected. Songs such as "Heavy Colors", "Be Proud", "I Don't Care", "And You're Still Crying", "Skinny Dog" and "It's Time to Get Going" have been part of the concert repertoire for decades and belong to different phases of Majke, while later releases expanded the sound toward blues, psychedelia and slower, more atmospheric forms. According to the announcement published before the concert, precisely this broad range was supposed to form the basis of the evening at Šalata. A complete official set list of the performance had not been publicly released by the early hours of September 6, so it is not possible to reliably state the final order of the songs performed or claim that every previously announced composition made it into the final program. What has been confirmed is that the concert was positioned from the outset as a combination of a career overview and the presentation of a new phase.
Since 1984, Majke have built one of the most recognizable rock stories in Croatia
According to the biography published by Croatia Records, Goran Bare founded Majke at the end of 1984 in Vinkovci, a city in eastern Croatia. After their first studio recordings and performances, the band played at Zagreb's Lapidarij and Belgrade's Akademija in the mid-1980s, and in 1987 the promotional material "Majke Forever" was recorded. The first album "Reason and Madness" was released in 1990, followed by "Discord", "Mercy", "It's Time to Get Going", the live album "Life Live" and "Road to the Heart of the Sun". Bare later also worked with Plaćenici and as a solo artist before Majke reunited. That changing lineup and series of different creative stages did not diminish the recognizability of the songwriting signature that remained associated with blues-rock, garage energy, a powerful vocal and highly personal lyrics.
An especially important stage arrived with the 2011 album "Heavy Colors". Croatia Records states that Goran Bare & Majke won six Porin awards for that project, which further strengthened the album's status in contemporary Croatian rock discography. Seven years later, "Side Effects" was released, an album that brought a new concert cycle and directly preceded the major Šalata concert in 2019. In the decades between the first performances and 2026, the members, record-industry circumstances and concert industry changed, but Bare remained the central songwriting and stage figure of the project. That is why the current name Goran Bare & Majke is also used as a link between the band's history and its present lineup.
"My Only One" opened a new chapter, while "Deluge" is still awaited
The single "My Only One" was released on December 9, 2025, by Croatia Records and represents the first officially released material connected with the new studio cycle. Although the album "Deluge" had been associated with the beginning of 2026 in earlier announcements, at the beginning of September of the same year it was still being described as a forthcoming release. Ahead of Šalata, 24sata stated that Bare had been working intensively on the album in recent months and that the Zagreb audience might also hear some of the new material. Such a situation is not unusual in rock production, where release schedules often change depending on recording, mixing, production and the artist's decision about when the material is finished. For now, it is therefore safer to speak of "Deluge" as an album in preparation, without speculating about a final release date.
At the same time, the band's concert activity during 2026 shows that a new studio release is not a prerequisite for continuing the tour. Before Zagreb, Goran Bare & Majke also performed on other regional stages during the year, while Šalata was singled out as the only Zagreb date. In that way, the September 5 performance also functioned as a kind of point of intersection: behind the band is a major anniversary phase marking forty years of creative work, and ahead of it is new material that still needs to receive its final album form. For long-time audiences, such a moment carries additional value because it allows songs created in different decades and current work to meet at the same concert. It is precisely this breadth of repertoire that is one of the reasons why Bare and Majke can still appear as headliners of a major standalone concert.
Šalata as an important Zagreb open-air venue
ŠRC Šalata is located in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, and the sports complex has also been used for decades as a venue for major open-air concerts. Unlike classic stadiums on the outskirts, Šalata is located relatively close to the historic city center, which gives concerts there a distinctly urban character. The open-air stage, stands and compact space create a different experience for the audience than large multi-purpose arenas, which is especially important for rock performers who rely on direct interaction with spectators. The 2019 concert by Goran Bare & Majke had already demonstrated how important that venue can be for their sound, and the return in 2026 further strengthened that connection. For the city's concert season at the beginning of September, this is a performance that connects the local history of the venue with a performer whose audience also comes from outside Zagreb.
According to Arena Zagreb's official website and earlier media reports, Bare and Majke have passed through almost the entire range of concert capacities in the city in recent years. That is why returning outdoors is more than a change of location: it shows that after more than forty years of activity, the band can still build major standalone events without relying exclusively on nostalgia. In the announcements for 2026, the emphasis was not only on well-known songs but also on new material, giving Šalata the role of a bridge between the archive and the future. This combination is particularly visible in comparison with 2019, when the concert was the culmination of the "Side Effects" cycle, while this year's takes place at a time when "Deluge" has not yet been released. The two Šalata concerts thus mark two different points in Bare's discography.
The only Zagreb concert in 2026 gained additional significance
From the first announcement in May, the organizers emphasized that the September 5 performance would be the only concert by Goran Bare & Majke in Zagreb during 2026. Music Box also published the initial ticket price categories in May, while immediately before the concert 24sata reported that online sales had sold out. In the same article, the Pula pop-rock group Nola was announced as the special guest. Because of the timing of publication and the fact that a complete official report with the performed song order was still unavailable in the early hours of September 6, it is most reliable to distinguish confirmed facts about the concert taking place from earlier program announcements. There is no need to fill gaps with assumptions: the very fact that the band returned to Šalata after more than seven years, following previously sold-out Zagreb halls, speaks clearly enough about the importance of the event.
For Goran Bare & Majke, Zagreb's Šalata thus once again becomes the site of a major open-air concert, but in a different phase than in 2019. At that time, the band had the recently released "Side Effects" behind them and a concert with a large orchestra; in 2026, they return to the stage with a new single, the album "Deluge" in preparation and a series of major performances from previous years. The return does not close one cycle so much as it opens the next, because the final form of the new album will show the direction in which Bare's songwriting story will continue. In that sense, Šalata was an important stop between an already established concert legacy and material that has yet to be released. For Zagreb's rock chronicle, the date September 5, 2026, remains recorded as the return of Goran Bare & Majke to a major city open-air stage after more than seven years.
Sources:
- 24sata - announcement of the September 5, 2026 concert, information about sold-out online sales, the last remaining tickets, special guest Nola and the album "Deluge" (link)
- Croatia Records - official biography of Goran Bare, history of Majke, discographic information, "Heavy Colors", "Side Effects" and the single "My Only One" (link)
- Croatia Records - report from the Goran Bare & Majke concert at Šalata on June 1, 2019, and information about the program at the time with a large orchestra (link)
- Arena Zagreb - official announcement and date of the Goran Bare & Majke concert on December 22, 2023 (link)
- HRT - information about the concerts at Boogaloo on November 21 and 22, 2024, as well as the band's history and forty years of career (link)
- Index.hr - report from the sold-out concert at Boćarski dom in Zagreb in October 2025 (link)
- Music Box - announcement of the return to Šalata, status as the only Zagreb concert in 2026 and ticket sales context (link)