#Nurudin-Dino Vatrenjak

[eurovision-revisited]

2001 Copenhagen - Number 14 - Punkt - "No Language"

Bosnia & Herzegovina has come a long way since its national final debut in a tiny TV studios during a war eight years ago. Now BH Eurosong is in front of live audience with live performances from a variety of bands, several of them established names in the Bosnian music scene.

Punkt are such a band. While not huge, they've been going since 1995 with various line-ups. Centred around group founder, guitarist and frontman Nurudin-Dino Vatrenjak they're described as rock/pop although most of their songs I've heard fall mostly into the upbeat pop category. They're quietly popular with an enthusiastic fanbase of happy boppers. This song to them is 'the Eurovision one'.

Although absolutely everywhere I've looked calls this song No Language, the band themselves call it Manule (Birds/To Manu). Once again - I have no lyrics, but in this case that might not be a problem. No Language/Manule seems to revolve around overcoming communication difficulties without the benefit of language. Some of it may be in an invented language. The winning combination of accordion and bongos takes me right back into the 1990s Eurovision meta and 1980s happy pop. It's simply a little piece of joy. A jubilant celebration of happy times that never fails to raise a smile.

This year's BH Eurosong involved a jury of eight judges giving each song a mark out of 10. Those marks were summed to make a scoreboard. A very tight scoreboard. No Language was one of the few songs to score two perfects 10s but a low score from the Vice Dean of the Academy of Economics at the University of Banja Luka (I'm not making this up), marooned Punkt in 10th place of the 19 songs albeit only 13 points behind the winner.

This wasn't Dino's first entry into the Bosnian national final. Two year's previously he'd teamed up with Dunja Galineo and managed to finish in last place. This was a big improvement, especially as this song still seems to hold a place in many hearts. This is the only entry that Punkt had into BH Eurosong and the last time that Nurudin-Dino Vatrenjak appeared. The band split in 2006 after the death of their drummer, with Dino going on to join Letu štuke. Punkt reformed in 2012 and have toured as well as remastering their old songs for new releases.

Stop press - I've found a better version, which has better sound and removes the volume dip towards the end of the song. Enjoy.