The Amy Winehouse Band in Rijeka moved from Trsat Castle to Pogon due to weather conditions
The concert by The Amy Winehouse Band project, which had been announced for September 12, 2026, as the closing event of this year's Summer at the Castle in Rijeka, was moved shortly before it was due to take place from Nugent Park next to Trsat Castle to Pogon kulture. According to the official announcement by the Rijeka Tourist Board, the reason for the change was the weather conditions, while the date and the basic concept of the evening remained unchanged. The new location was the Pogon kulture concert hall at 1 Strossmayerova Street, in the Sušak area. This moved the program from the outdoor space next to Trsat Castle into an indoor venue, enabling the organizers to retain the announced content despite unfavorable conditions. The change was announced several days before the scheduled date so that visitors could adjust their arrival plans in time.
According to Novi list, the doors of Pogon kulture were scheduled to open at 8 p.m., while the beginning of the main concert performance was announced for 9:30 p.m. Tickets purchased earlier remained valid for the new location, with no need for exchange or repurchase. Official and ticket-sales announcements during the preceding days had listed the start of the evening program at 8 p.m., so the difference in times resulted from distinguishing between the start of the program and the band's appearance on stage. A DJ set by Luca Montecchi before and after the concert was also announced as part of the evening. According to the available announcements, the relocation was not expected to affect the repertoire, the visual component of the performance, or the overall concept dedicated to the music of Amy Winehouse.
The program remained focused on the songs that defined Amy Winehouse's career
At the center of the evening were the songs that turned Amy Winehouse into one of the most recognizable British musicians of her generation. The Rijeka announcements particularly highlighted the tracks „Rehab“, „Back to Black“, „Valerie“, „Tears Dry on Their Own“, „You Know I’m No Good“ and „Love Is a Losing Game“. The organizers presented the program as a concert remembrance of her work, but not as a conventional tribute project made up of musicians with no direct connection to the original material. The key difference was precisely that The Amy Winehouse Band is led by and consists of musicians who performed with Winehouse, worked with her in the studio, or took part in shaping her concert sound. Alongside the live performances, the program included archival footage and visual materials, allowing the concert to draw on the documentary dimension of her musical legacy as well.
According to the project's official website, The Amy Winehouse Band is led by Dale Davis, Amy Winehouse's longtime bassist and musical director. Davis worked with her from the period of her first album „Frank“, and their collaboration continued through the years in which „Back to Black“ became a global success. The band's official website states that the project brings together musicians who shared stages and studio work with Winehouse and that the concerts use original arranging and performance connections to her repertoire. The current lineup of the project includes instrumentalists, a horn section, backing vocalists and singers who take on the lead vocal parts, while the performance itself is designed so that the emphasis remains on the songs and the sound rather than on imitating the private life or public image of the late artist. Such an approach is particularly important with a performer whose biography often overshadowed discussion of the music itself.
Dale Davis as the link between the original performances and today's project
Dale Davis is one of the key figures in the story of today's The Amy Winehouse Band. In interviews in recent years, he has spoken about the period in which he developed concert arrangements with Winehouse as far back as the era of the album „Frank“, released in 2003, as well as the later period when her career rapidly expanded beyond the British scene. In a 2024 interview with NME, he recalled the early performances and emphasized how inclined Winehouse was to change melodies and improvise from one evening to the next. That very sense of a living, changing performance is one of the elements today's project seeks to preserve, without attempting to turn the concert into a mere reconstruction of the album recordings. Davis has also remained one of the most recognizable figures from her original concert environment.
The official website of The Amy Winehouse Band lists performances and tours in cities and regions such as London, Paris, Helsinki, Athens, Jakarta and South America. The Rijeka date was therefore part of a broader international concert activity that in 2026 is additionally linked to the 20th anniversary of the album „Back to Black“. In announcements for the British tour in the autumn and winter of 2026, the project was presented as a celebration of twenty years since the release that brought Winehouse worldwide recognition. That anniversary gives the current concerts an additional historical framework, but the project's repertoire is not limited to a single album. Official announcements list songs from the releases „Frank“, „Back to Black“ and the posthumous collection „Lioness: Hidden Treasures“, so the concept is broader than performing one album in its entirety.
„Back to Black“ remained the central point of her musical legacy
The album „Back to Black“, released in 2006, remained the most important commercial and critical milestone of Amy Winehouse's career. According to data from the British Official Charts Company, the album reached number one on the official UK albums chart and spent an exceptionally long period on it, demonstrating how its listenership outlived the original cycle of single releases. Songs such as „Rehab“, „Back to Black“ and „You Know I’m No Good“ combined soul, jazz, R&B and pop with production that evoked the sound of the 1960s, but without creating the impression of historical imitation. Winehouse nevertheless remained a distinctly personal songwriter, with lyrics that often spoke directly about relationships, self-sabotage, loss and emotional instability. It was precisely this combination of older musical patterns and a very contemporary songwriting voice that helped the album become one of the key British releases of the first decade of the 21st century.
The importance of the album was also confirmed at the 50th Grammy Awards in 2008. The Recording Academy states that Amy Winehouse won five awards that evening, including Best New Artist, Best Pop Vocal Album, and Record and Song of the Year for „Rehab“. „Back to Black“ was also nominated for Album of the Year. That success turned Winehouse into a global star at a time when she was already established on the British scene, and her influence later spread to a new generation of pop and soul performers. Twenty years after the album's release, interest in the songs remains strong enough for a project made up of her former collaborators to continue international tours and concerts in front of audiences that partly belong to a generation that never had the opportunity to see Winehouse live.
The Rijeka performance was conceived as the finale of Summer at the Castle
The concert was originally planned for Nugent Park, an outdoor space immediately next to Trsat Castle, as the closing event of the Summer at the Castle festival. In its summer 2026 program, the City of Rijeka states that the event ran from June 12 to September 12 and over three months included concerts, theater performances, children's programs and other cultural and entertainment events. The performers and programs included various musical and stage projects, while The Amy Winehouse Band was announced as the closing international concert. By moving to Pogon kultura, the finale lost the planned Trsat setting but retained its date and musical content. This also demonstrated the practical advantage of having a backup indoor location for events held on outdoor stages at the end of summer.
The decision to relocate was made during a week marked by unstable weather in the Rijeka area. On September 8, the City of Rijeka announced that an orange warning had been issued for September 9 and 10 due to thunderstorms, with the possibility of more intense showers, gale-force winds, hail and heavier precipitation over a short period. Although that warning applied to the days before the concert itself, the official notice from the Tourist Board directly linked the change of location to weather conditions. The organizational move therefore did not mean a change in the program, but rather a transfer of the event to conditions in which the technical production and the audience could be better protected from possible rain and storms. For concerts involving sound systems, lighting, projections and a larger number of instruments, such a decision also has both a safety and a production dimension.
Archival footage and a DJ set expanded the concert beyond the classic tribute format
In addition to live performances of the songs, the Rijeka program included archival footage associated with Amy Winehouse. The official website of The Amy Winehouse Band states that concerts, where technical conditions permit, use screen projections and special footage. This means that the performance relies not only on recognizable melodies, but also on the visual context of the period in which the songs were created and performed. In Rijeka, DJ Luca Montecchi was expected to provide an additional musical framework for the evening, with a program announced before and after the central performance. Such a structure made it possible to connect the concert with Pogon kulture's club format after the move from the park.
The move into the hall changed the spatial experience of the event more than its content. Nugent Park next to Trsat Castle was conceived as an outdoor summer stage, with its historical setting as an important part of the overall experience. Pogon kulture, on the other hand, is a purpose-built concert and club venue, bringing the performance closer to a typical indoor format. For the music of Amy Winehouse, which drew equally on the intimacy of jazz and soul clubs and the energy of large festival stages, this change did not necessarily mean a loss of atmosphere, but it certainly altered the relationship between the audience and the performers. Instead of an evening under the open sky, the emphasis shifted to a more compact club space and more immediate contact with the band.
Amy Winehouse's musical legacy continues to attract new audiences
Amy Winehouse was born on September 14, 1983, in London and died on July 23, 2011, at the age of 27. In its biography of her, the Recording Academy particularly emphasizes that „Back to Black“ made her a global star and that in 2008 she won five Grammys in a single evening. The fact that the Rijeka concert was held just two days before the 43rd anniversary of her birth additionally emphasized the temporal proximity of a date that carries symbolic weight for her fans, although the organizers did not highlight that detail as a central theme of the program. The much more important focus remained on the songs and the musicians who performed them with her. In this way, the concert fits into a broader trend of preserving her catalog through live performances, reissues and new generations of listeners.
For audiences who followed Winehouse during her lifetime, The Amy Winehouse Band offers a connection to the original concert sound and to the people who were part of that period. For younger audiences, the project functions differently: as an opportunity to hear in a full live lineup the songs they discovered through streaming, films, social media or later releases. It is precisely this dual audience that is one of the reasons why the project continues to tour internationally years after the singer's death. The band's official website emphasizes that the goal is not imitation, but the preservation of her music through the people who participated in creating her recognizable concert sound. The Rijeka performance was part of that same international story, only with an unexpected change of stage shortly before it took place.
What the change of location meant for visitors
The most important practical information was that the move from Trsat did not mean the cancellation of the program. According to Novi list, all tickets purchased earlier remained valid for Pogon kulture, so visitors did not need to make any additional exchange. The new address was Strossmayerova 1 in Rijeka, while the evening program retained the announced performances of Amy Winehouse's biggest songs, archival footage and the DJ segment. In its official notice, the Rijeka Tourist Board cited weather conditions as the reason, without announcing any other changes to the content. The organizational message was therefore clear: the venue was changing, but not the fundamental character of the closing musical evening of Summer at the Castle.
In a broader context, the Rijeka concert took place in the year in which „Back to Black“ celebrates 20 years since its release. The Amy Winehouse Band continues a series of international dates throughout 2026, with the official schedule including European and British performances after the Rijeka stop as well. This confirms that the project is not a one-off memorial program, but a longer-term concert platform focused on Amy Winehouse's repertoire. The move from Trsat Castle to Pogon was therefore primarily a local production adjustment to the weather, while in terms of content the Rijeka concert remained part of a broader touring story. At its center remained the songs that defined her short but exceptionally influential career and which, two decades after „Back to Black“, continue to have a strong international life.
Sources:
- Rijeka Tourist Board / Visit Rijeka - official notice about the change of concert location, the new address and the reason for the relocation (link)
- Novi list - information about the schedule at Pogon kulture, the validity of previously purchased tickets and the repertoire (link)
- The Amy Winehouse Band - official information about Dale Davis, the lineup, the concert concept, visual materials and international performances (link)
- The Amy Winehouse Band - official tour schedule for 2026 (link)
- Recording Academy / Grammy - information about Amy Winehouse's five awards at the 50th Grammy Awards and honors for „Rehab“ and „Back to Black“ (link)
- Official Charts Company - information about the chart performance of the album „Back to Black“ on the UK chart (link)
- City of Rijeka - Summer at the Castle 2026 program and the context of the event from June to September (link)
- City of Rijeka - weather warning and description of unstable weather conditions during the week of the concert (link)
- Koncerti & Festivali - confirmation of archival footage and Luca Montecchi's DJ set in the Rijeka program (link)