When, in January 2017, Darko Bakić, a friend and a musician colleague, called me on the phone and told me that he had just read my book “I Found A Good Band” and he wanted to invite me for a glass of wine. I thought he wanted to discuss about the beauty of the written word or about past and nostalgic musical days.
Yes, my book was about my musical beginnings and my first bands in the 70s and 80s, but Darko didn’t want to talk much about the past, he wanted to talk about the future. He said that my book is filled with love for blues and that he wants to talk about the idea of a blues festival in Trilj.
Trilj, a small city, a hinterland of Split in the middle of Dalmatia, known for a traffic junction crossroads from the coast to Bosnia and Croatian West, and good food. Until 2017. Idea of blues festival in Trilj was a blast in my mind, I just saw a whole picture, a small city, river Cetina, the bridges, city park and crossroads…perfect for a blues festival. I remember a few of my schoolmates from high school, they traveled from Trilj or Sinj to Split everyday, they all where listening to a lot of blues. With all that and a Trilj blood in my veins, my grandmother was from Trilj, I just said yes, sure, blues festival in Trilj will be something.
For the first year, I called Eric Sardinas to be the headliner and asked him when he was free and that information determined the date of the 1st Thrill Blues Festival – 7/14/2017. From then until today, the Thrill Blues festival has only grown, from one day of the festival to three, and so far over fifty blues artists from over twenty countries have performed. In addition to the concerts themselves, the multimedia content also grew, so we also had exhibitions of paintings, photographs, promotion of books, magazines, chocolate bars, blues documentaries and the magazines. Each edition of the festival started with Blues at School workshops for the youngest, which grew into a real Thrill Blues School with musical participants and international mentors.
Thrill Blues Festival is also active in blues diplomacy, and every year it hosts prominent blues activists such as representatives of the European Blues Union, President Davide Grandi, board members Fred Delforge and the late Mike Raven, and the long-time president of the Blues Foundation from Memphis, Jay Sieleman, and Michael Limnios, ambassador of the Greek Hall of Fame.
The Thrill is Alive and Well!