On 23 September 1997, Irish rock band U2 performed at Koševo Stadium in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, as part of the group's PopMart Tour. They were the first major artist to hold a concert in the city since the end of the Bosnian War in 1995. Approximately 45,000 people attended the show.
The band first became involved with Sarajevo in 1993 on their Zoo TV Tour. After being approached by aid worker Bill Carter about bringing attention to the Siege of Sarajevo, the band began conducting nightly satellite transmissions with Bosnians during their shows. These link-ups were the subject of criticism from journalists for mixing entertainment with human tragedy. Although the war made it impractical for U2 to visit Sarajevo at the time, they vowed to eventually play a concert in the city. After the conflict ended in November 1995, they made arrangements to visit Sarajevo, and with help from United Nations ambassadors and peacekeeping troops, they scheduled and played the concert in 1997.
The band offered to hold a benefit concert or a small show in Sarajevo, but it was requested that they stage a full PopMart concert. The performance featured the tour's extravagant stage, and the band played a set list typical of the tour. The show brought together people of different ethnicities who had previously clashed during the war, and train service was temporarily resumed to allow concertgoers to attend. Among the songs played was "Miss Sarajevo", written by U2 and Brian Eno about a beauty pageant held during the war. Although the band were displeased with their performance and lead vocalist Bono had vocal difficulties, the concert was well received, particularly by Bosnians, and was credited with improving morale among them. The members of U2 consider the show to be among their proudest moments. The band's involvement with Sarajevo and their 1997 performance there were profiled in the 2023 documentary film Kiss the Future.
Background
War in Sarajevo
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was composed of six constituent republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. In 1991, Croatia, and Slovenia seceded from Yugoslavia. Bosnia and Herzegovina — a republic with a mixed population consisting of Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats—followed suit in March 1992 in a highly controversial referendum, creating tension in the ethnic communities. Bosnian Serb militias, whose strategic goal was to secede from Bosnia and Herzegovina and unite with Serbia, encircled Sarajevo with a siege force of 18,000 stationed in the surrounding hills, from which they assaulted the city with weapons that included artillery, mortars, tanks, anti-aircraft guns, heavy machine-guns, rocket launchers, and aircraft bombs. From 2 May 1992 until the end of the war in 1996, the city was blockaded. The Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, numbering roughly 40,000 inside the besieged city, was poorly equipped and unable to break the siege. Meanwhile, throughout the country, thousands of predominantly Bosniak civilians were driven from their homes in a process of ethnic cleansing. In Sarajevo, women and children attempting to buy food were frequently terrorized by Bosnian Serb sniper fire.
U2's reaction
In 1993, U2 were in Europe for the "Zooropa" leg of their Zoo TV Tour. Before their 3 July show in Verona, Italy, the band received a fax from Radio and Television of Bosnia and Herzegovina asking for an interview regarding the situation in Bosnia. The band agreed and met with an American aid worker named Bill Carter, who acted as the station's foreign associate, due to Serbian travel restrictions.McCormick (2006), pp. 252–253Flanagan (1996), p. 277 Carter described his experiences in Sarajevo helping Bosnians while surviving the dangerous living conditions. Lead vocalist Bono was unnerved to hear that those living in makeshift bomb shelters in the city played music, including U2's, at loud volumes to drown out the sound of explosions. While in Sarajevo, Carter had seen a television interview on MTV in which Bono mentioned the theme of the Zooropa tour leg was a unified Europe. Carter felt that vision would be unfulfilled if the Bosnians' plight went ignored and thus sought Bono's help.Carter (2005), p. 170 He requested that U2 go to Sarajevo to bring attention to the war and break the "media fatigue" that had occurred from covering the conflict.
Bono agreed to Carter's request without asking the rest of the band, and when informed of the idea, the other members gave only tacit approval. They briefly considered playing an impromptu concert in the city, with Bono suggesting that they perform in the bunker where Carter and his friends hid during the siege. He said, "even if all we get is some extra attention for Bosnia on MTV, that's something".Jackson (2008), p. 47 The idea fell through when it was pointed out that the logistics of transporting their equipment into the city were impossible, as the only way into Sarajevo was on a United Nations plane. Manager Paul McGuinness realized that even if the band managed to organize a concert, it would endanger their lives and those of the audience and the Zoo TV crew. As he explained, "U2's effort to discuss any humanitarian issue have sometimes been accompanied by a false instinct that U2 is also obliged to resolve that issue. Going to Sarajevo seems to me to fall into that category. I think it would endanger the people we go with, endanger the tour, and endanger the band."Flanagan (1996), p. 294 Drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. feared that the move would look like a publicity stunt.
Instead, the group agreed to use the tour's satellite dish to conduct live video transmissions from their concerts to Carter in Sarajevo. Carter returned to the city and assembled a video unit. The band purchased a satellite dish to be sent to Sarajevo and paid a £100,000 fee to join the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). Once set up, the band began satellite link-ups to Sarajevo on nearly a nightly basis, the first of which aired on 17 July 1993 in Bologna, Italy.Flanagan (1996), pp. 300–306 To connect with the EBU satellite, Carter and two co-workers were forced to visit the Sarajevo television station at night and to film with as little light as possible to avoid the attention of snipers and bombers. To reach the building, they had to traverse an area known as "Sniper Alley".Jackson (2008), pp. 48, 49 This was done a total of 12 times over the course of a month. During the broadcasts, Carter discussed the deteriorating situation in the city, and Bosnians often spoke to U2 and their audience. These grim interviews starkly contrasted with the rest of the show; concerts on the Zoo TV Tour were elaborately staged multimedia events that satirised television and the audience's overstimulation. Most of the shows were scripted, but the link-ups to Sarajevo were not, leaving the group unsure who would speak or what they would say. U2 stopped the broadcasts in August 1993 after learning that the siege of Sarajevo was being reported on the front of many British newspapers. Though this trend had begun before the band's first Sarajevo transmission, Nathan Jackson suggested that U2's actions had brought awareness of the situation to their fans and to the British public indirectly.
Reactions to the transmissions were mixed. Many fans felt the transmissions disrupted the flow of the concerts. Most of the British press was highly critical. One writer for NME wrote, "The Bosnian linkup was beyond bad taste. It was insulting." Bono thought that they were bringing the public's attention to an important event, though he admitted that the link-ups were the most difficult thing the band had done in their career.Flanagan (1996), pp. 307–308 Guitarist the Edge said, "We don't normally see that kind of cold hard news. We get a very sanitized, editorialized take on everything... When you watch the television news, you are getting something palatable, whereas this was really quite unpalatable most of the time. And for that reason I think it affected people very much, including us." Mullen worried that the band were exploiting the Bosnians' suffering for entertainment. During a transmission from the band's concert at Wembley Stadium, three women in Sarajevo asked what the band intended to do to help before telling Bono, "We know you're not going to do anything for us. You're going to go back to a rock show. You're going to forget that we even exist. And we're all going to die." During a transmission to a Glasgow concert, a Bosnian woman told the concert audience, "We would like to hear the music, too, but we hear only the screams of wounded and tortured people and raped women." Some people were upset by the circumstances of Sarajevo and were motivated to join the War Child charity project, including U2 producer Brian Eno. Despite U2's obligation to the tour and their inability to perform in Sarajevo during the war, they vowed to play the city someday.McCormick (2006), pp. 277, 279
The band contributed to Bosnian relief efforts to enhance humanitarian and public awareness of the issue,Flanagan (2005), p. 201 and Bono and Carter subsequently collaborated on the documentary Miss Sarajevo, which showcased the war-torn city during Carter's six months living there. In 1995, U2 and Eno wrote the song "Miss Sarajevo" as a response to "the surreal acts of defiance that had taken place during the siege of Sarajevo".McCormick (2006), p. 262 One such act was a beauty pageant organized by Bosnian women who planned to fight the war with their "lipstick and heels". During the pageant, all of the participants walked onto the stage carrying a banner that said, "Don't let them kill us". The winner of the pageant, 17-year-old Inela Nogić, later said the pageant "was a crazy thing to do during a war. But we tried to live a normal life. It was some kind of a defence mechanism we all had." Years later, Bono said, "It was pure Dada and it deserved to be celebrated in song." Of the song's meaning, he said, "Everywhere people had heard their call for help—but help never came. That was the feeling. I had tried to tackle subjects like this head-on, but I'd learnt a lesson. You have to try and make the same points, in a different, less direct, more surrealist way."Stokes (2005), pp. 198–199 "Miss Sarajevo" was recorded with Luciano Pavarotti and released as the first single from U2's side-project with Eno entitled Original Soundtracks 1; the record was released under the pseudonym "Passengers".
Scheduling and preparations
As the Bosnian War ended in 1995 and the siege of Sarajevo in 1996, the stability of the region began to improve. Realizing this, U2 began to plan a concert for Sarajevo that would take place on their 1997 PopMart Tour. Although they were the first major musical artist to perform in the city following the war, China Drum had played a concert in July 1996.de la Parra (2003), pp. 211–212 Music journalist Andrew Mueller described China Drum's experience in a single van as a "logistical and administrative nightmare". Muhamed Sacirbey, the Bosnian Ambassador to the United Nations, helped U2 make arrangements, playing an informal role as promoter and organizer. McGuinness said, "We thought it was going to be quite difficult. But it's been quite straightforward. People have just wanted to help. We've blagged a lot of equipment, forklifts and so on, from the military, and the local crew have been incredibly supportive."