The Elvis of Croatian veterans
The charisma and voice of the "King of Rock" from Rijeka were stronger than grenades. At more than 300 performances, Roni would make a "Deck Party" to which everyone was invited.
What would the Rijeka rock scene have been like in the 1960s, and which entertainer would have raised the morale of Croatian soldiers with his performances if little Roland had not fallen awkwardly and injured his leg that summer?
But let's start from the beginning. In July 1943, Roland Šuster was born, Vilma and Ana's first and only child. He was born into a very ambitious and successful family. Namely, Vilim was a lawyer, and his mother Ana was a coach and European champion in bowling.
Roland inherited his talent for sports from his parents. So he trained in athletics as a young man. He was the junior champion at 100 meters, and a promising career awaited him. Unfortunately, an accident happened. During one training session, he fell awkwardly and injured his leg, which is why he had to give up his sports career.
Although it seemed like the end of the world, Roland soon found solace in his second love – music! After finishing secondary chemistry school in Rijeka, he became the lead vocalist of the group "Sonori". Sonori were one of the champions of Yugoslav rock. They performed for the first time in 1962, and were favorites of Rijeka's youth, especially high school students and their "parties".
They played Shadows, Elvis and the Beatles, and the summer season opened up opportunities for them to perform on the terraces of many hotels on the sunny Adriatic. Rolando's recognizable voice and charisma pushed them forward, so they soon released their own record, which went down in history as the first discography of Rijeka rock.
At their debut, the timeless hit "Fešta na palubi" stood out in particular. The modern rock dance composition won the third prize at the "Melody of Istria and Kvarner" festival. Pictures from that time bear witness to overcrowded dance halls, hot atmosphere and Roni's stage acrobatics.
His recognition enabled Roland to soon move to the Lovran team "Riviera", and then to "Kockare". Gamblers most often played on ships, on Barba Ruda's ship, on Jedinstva, and one of their more interesting performances was the one in Libya where they played as a band on a hotel ship.
Soon the talented Roland received an invitation from the Zagreb theater "Komedija" to become part of their musical lineup. Then he went to Zagreb. He married Đurđica, a professional dancer in the LADO ensemble, and had a daughter Romina and sons Robert and Zoran.
With the beginning of the Homeland War, Croatian artists felt the need to get involved in the defense of the Homeland. Although many of them had already been in the war, some of them believed that they could contribute the most in the fight through art. The invitation will be announced soon.
Roland was one of about a hundred artists selected to form the "Croatian Artists" Company. They say that the company is an unrecorded unit in the history of warfare in terms of its form and meaning. The members had their own hunting or personal weapons and trained in the student dormitory "Franjo Bučar" in Zagreb. Before going into battle, they made at their own expense personal identification plates on which their name and blood type were written. Namely, they were aware of the dangers of such a mission.
Roland belonged to the "Bilogora" group. With her, he visited the front lines and encouraged the spirit of the soldiers with songs, cheerfulness and closeness. Painter Dubravko Adamović, also a member of the company, recalled what Roland's more than three hundred appearances for Croatian veterans looked like.
"The older ones wistfully accepted Roni's invitations to sing freely, while the younger ones alternated with "airports" in disbelief. Hits, evergreens; foreign and domestic, folk and folk... And so on for hours. Two or three performances daily. And every time it was hard to part..."
Roland always carried a notebook with him. She was his companion on all patrols and fields, and in her was his entire musical alter ego. It was a notebook with more than a hundred compositions.
The notebook turned gloomy nights and damp bunkers into gala concert halls and ballrooms. Roland's voice, guitar and saxophone overpowered the explosions of bombs in the distance, and he took his "guests" through a real musical time machine.
"Roni, in fact, knew everything. The Everly Brothers really sounded like a black and white recording in today's self-titled show. Elvis and Fats too... Moody Blues, Yardbirds... Luis and Paul Anka... Everything sounded like it did back then - sixty-fourth, fifth, sixth..."
The company was disbanded quickly, in the spring of 1992. Some artists returned home, and others, joining other groups, went to fight. Roland soon fell seriously ill. Nevertheless, he kept his cheerfulness and optimism until the very end. - Listen, you should be happy! He should act, paint... - he told his friends.
And to them it seemed as if he was calling them on the boat just yesterday. Roland died at the end of January 1994. But his optimism, love for life, joy and music will live forever in the lyrics that are still sung in the streets of Rijeka: "Look, there's a party coming up, let's dance this night too, because tomorrow I'll be sailing away, I won't be here until winter... .“
