The biggest Balkan star, as many call him the Wizard, Dino Merlin will welcome everyone who decide to celebrate the New Year’s Eve in Sarajevo. Behind him and his team is very successful year marked by the tour Hotel Nacional. Dino will sing in a public celebration of New Year’s Eve in his city for the first time after 30 years of his career.
What will you remember the most about 2016?
This was one of the most exciting years in my life. It is good when you are 54 years old, as I am, and it is still exciting and fun. We continued the tour Hotel Nacional with exceptional concerts in Zenica, Tuzla, Zagreb, Osijek, Ohrid, Subotica, Istanbul and now, for the first time for the New Year’Eve, in Sarajevo. It was a fun year, but it is certain that we worked very hard, sometimes without stopping for months. Last year will be remembered by many things but perhaps the most by the end of it. Usually it happens like that, life goes, and only a couple of nice memories remain and usually we remember the end.
My life was “almost perfect”, but I do not live under a glass bell, I live with the people and it is impossible not to notice all the pain that happened this year, both in our country and in the world – all these wars, refugees and all the great men who are no longer with us. However, although I once wrote, “in these years every new one is an insult,” I want to wait the one that comes with hope and optimism.
What have you prepared for all those who will welcome 2017 in your city?
We have prepared a ‘facelift’. We raised the scale even more. New scene, unusual location, new scenic elements, great stage that was used on the last tour of Maroon 5 and Red Hot Chili Peppers, laser show, the latest sound system, acrobatics, animation, projection, i.e. everything which makes the audience leave from my concerts satisfied.
How much it means to you to give the New Year’s Eve spectacle to Sarajevo?
It is always exciting to do something for the first time. These are things that are remembered for a lifetime. I love challenges and I love adventure, to be different, and I love to give to others. This whole story started with the desire to do something that we never did before. I have not performed for the New Year’s Eve in my city in more than thirty years of my career. I understand that people have different opinions and tastes but, the fact is that I have the opportunity to choose: whether to perform for the New Year, where to perform and under what conditions.
I had many offers for New Year’s Eve concert, under my conditions and for very attractive fees. However, I decided to refuse all these offers and to offer spectacular New Year’s Eve concert in Sarajevo to BiH and throughout the region.
What I know is that no one remembers any previous New Year’s Eve concert in Sarajevo, and this one will be spectacular, and remembered for a long time, not only in Sarajevo.
What do you want to citizens in the coming year?
I wish everyone health, because health is a precondition for everything else. Healthy is easier to be happy, it is easier to find a job, it is easier to make money and to cope with all the challenges that carries the time in which we live. I always like to wish something that I believe that I can realize. The only way for 2017 to be new, and better, and fuller and healthier year for us is that we become new, better and healthier people. A healthy person is a happy person, because happiness and joy are where health is. Therefore, on this occasion I want to wish not a happy, but a healthy new year.
(Source: E. S. H./Klix.ba)
