U2 is going on a world tour once again. From Mexico City and São Paulo through Buenos Aires, Stockholm, Paris, Amsterdam, London, Berlin, and Milan. Sarajevo is not on that map for now.
But it’s hard to find a city with such a special story with Bono and U2. Why shouldn’t the City of Sarajevo, Sarajevo Canton, tourist boards, and domestic organizers try to bring U2 to Koševo once again in 2027?
There are events that, with time, become more than they were at the moment they happened. The U2 group concert at the Koševo stadium on September 23, 1997, was one of them.
Sarajevo was just starting to recover from the siege and destruction. The city carried deep wounds, infrastructure was damaged, and life was only just going back to normal. However, the city succeeded in bringing one of the greatest rock bands in the world to the stadium, as part of their spectacular PopMart tour.
This wasn’t just a concert. This was a message that Sarajevo again belongs to the world, that great things can happen here, and that this city was not doomed to forever serve as a place where people come to express solidarity.
Thirty years later, U2 announces its great world tour once again. While other cities prepare for the arrival of Bon and his crew, aquestion that should be asked at the addresses of city and cantonal institutions is: why shouldn’t Sarajevo try once again to be part of their concert map?
U2 on a World Tour Once Again – Sarajevo Left Out
The new tour is titled “The Greatest Show on Earth.” The 2027 schedule so far includes a series of major world and European cities.
Latin America:
• February – Mexico City, Estadio GNP Seguros
• February – Mexico City, Estadio GNP Seguros
• February – Mexico City, Estadio GNP Seguros
• March – Mexico City, Estadio GNP Seguros
• March – São Paulo, Estádio MorumBIS
• March – São Paulo, Estádio MorumBIS
• March – São Paulo, Estádio MorumBIS
• March – São Paulo, Estádio MorumBIS
• March – Buenos Aires, Estadio River Plate
• March – Buenos Aires, Estadio River Plate
• March – Buenos Aires, Estadio River Plate
Europe and the UK:
• April – Stockholm, Strawberry Arena
• April – Stockholm, Strawberry Arena
• May – Paris, Stade de France
• May – Paris, Stade de France
• May – Lisbon, Estádio da Luz
• June – Amsterdam, Johan Cruijff ArenA
• June – Amsterdam, Johan Cruijff ArenA
• June – London, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
• June – London, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
• June – Berlin, Olympiastadion
• July – Milan, Stadio San Siro
• July – Milan, Stadio San Siro
For the audience from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Milan is the closest European Destination so far.
Dates for Spain and North America are announced as future additions to the schedule.
Thousands of people from Bosnia and Herzegovina and neighboring countries will probably go to Milan, buy tickets, book hotels, and spend a couple of days in a city for one concert.
Why wouldn’t they come to Sarajevo?
Relationship That Cannot Be Reestablished in Any Other City
Sarajevo has something that no other city on this tour has – a special historical, cultural, and emotional connection with U2.
Bono is not only the frontman of one of the greatest rock bands in history. He is a man who spoke about our city in front of millions of people during the most difficult years of the Siege of Sarajevo. He became an honorary citizen of the Sarajevo Canton, and in 1997, he received an honorary passport of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
His bond with Sarajevo did not arise because of one concert, or end when the lights went out at Koševo.
The “Miss Sarajevo” song emerged from that bond, the song that U2 and Brian Eno turned into a global musical event, which Bono performed along with Luciano Pavarotti. The song was about women who, despite grenades and death surrounding them, organized a beauty pageant and tried to preserve dignity and a normal life.
This was a story about Sarajevo that the whole world understood.
Years later, the “Kiss the Future” movie once again opened up that incredible story about music, resilience, and Sarajevo. It also reminded younger generations of the time when one world band, along with people from cultural and public life, tried to break the media silence surrounding our city.
Because of all these things, Sarajevo should not only be another stop on the tour. It could be a special place in that story. Maybe the most special one.
From Regional Cultural Center to Accepting Marginality
Here, we come to the question that is much more important than the concert itself: what happened with Sarajevo in the meantime?
We used to have ambition to be a regional cultural center. The city was visited for music, movies, theater, art, and major events. A city that knew how to attract the attention of the entire region.
Today, we often feel like we have retreated into our own borders, satisfied with organizing something for the local audience, while major cultural events bypass Sarajevo.
This is not a question of a lack of talent, creativity, or audience. Sarajevo still has great artists, musicians, directors, organizers, and people who know how to make great things. The problem is that there is less and less ambition to place the city outside its own yard.
We could call this process a cultural “kasabization.” We do not mean the size of the city, but a mentality that slowly gets used to marginality, stops asking major questions, and gives up on major ideas even faster.
One U2 concert wouldn’t solve all those problems. But it could be much more than a music event.
Let’s envision Sarajevo where tens of thousands of people from the entire region gather. Hotels, restaurants, and cafes full of guests. A city where people would talk about a concert for days, where global media would report on Sarajevo once again because of music, and not because of political blockades and crises.
An event that would have a serious tourist and economic impact and show that Sarajevo still has the capacity to be an important place on the European Cultural Map.
Who Will Make the First Step?
Of course, such a concert entails serious production requirements, infrastructure, logistics, financial construction, an international promoter, and professional organization. These are not small obstacles, but not impossible either.
That is why we believe that the City of Sarajevo, Sarajevo Canton, the Tourist Board of Canton Sarajevo, tourist organizations, and local private organizers should try to get in touch with U2’s management and tour organizers right now.
Not as a protocol gesture, not as a symbolic plea, but as a concrete business offer.
It should be checked whether there are possibilities for an additional concert date, what the production and financial conditions are, and whether Sarajevo can assemble a serious international and local partner consortium.
We shouldn’t wait for someone else to come up with the idea. We shouldn’t wait for an initiative to appear from London, Dublin, or some other European city.
And one more thing. It is important that the eventual return of U2 to Sarajevo is not conceived as a humanitarian or charitable event.
Bono and U2 have already done a lot for Sarajevo. We owe them our gratitude for that. But Sarajevo today should not ask for someone to come out of solidarity again. It should show that it can offer a top-tier concert, professional organization, an audience, and an event that will pay off for both the band and the organizers.
Sarajevo no longer needs a humanitarian ticket for the world to visit it. It needs the ambition, capability, and self-confidence to organize an event that people will want to pay for, travel for, and remember.
We don’t know if Bono and his crew will be interested. We don’t know if all the concert dates are already booked, or what the possibilities are for a potential extra date. But we do know that it would be devastating if no one in this city bothered to check.
Because if in 1997, under much harsher circumstances, we managed to bring U2 to Koševo, then at least we have the right to ask ourselves why we couldn’t try it in 2027 as well.
Thirty years have passed. Bono has remained a friend of Sarajevo. The song “Miss Sarajevo” remains. The film Kiss the Future remains. The story that no one can take away from us remains.
The only question is whether we still have enough self-confidence to continue that story.
Sarajevo brought U2 once. It would be nice if someone dared to invite them again today, Radio Sarajevo writes.
