1997-09-23 - Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina - Kosevo Stadium


setlist

Performance notes: Sunday Bloody Sunday was performed solo by The Edge for the first time and was played in this manner for the rest of the Popmart Tour. Miss Sarajevo was played with Brian Eno. U2 visited Sarajevo to fulfill a promise made during the Zoo TV Tour to play in war-ravaged Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was the first concert the band played in any country that was formerly part of Yugoslavia; the second did not take place until 9 August 2009 in Zagreb, Croatia.
Setlist and comment provided by U2gigs.com.

songs per album

  1. Pop (7)
  2. Achtung Baby (4)
  3. The Joshua Tree (4)
  4. War (2)
  5. Boy (1)
  6. The Unforgettable Fire (1)
  7. Rattle and Hum (1)
  8. Passengers (1)

best song performances

  1. Even Better Than The Real Thing (11 votes)
  2. Discothèque (11 votes)
  3. Miss Sarajevo (9 votes)
  4. Sunday Bloody Sunday (9 votes)
  5. Please (8 votes)
  6. Gone (7 votes)
  7. Where The Streets Have No Name (5 votes)
  8. Last Night On Earth (5 votes)
  9. Mofo (5 votes)
  10. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (4 votes)
  11. Bullet The Blue Sky (3 votes)
  12. Pride (In The Name Of Love) (3 votes)

We would like to know which shows you attended and which shows you are going to attend. On this page you can see which members attended or are going to attend this show. Maybe you can send some of them a private message to meet up or talk about this show.

show attendees: 6

dodosock
Croatia
mccaber
Colorado
Jac_Mirko_NL
Netherlands
1 user from Austria: svfg1
1 from Bosnia and Herzegovina: tipsy_lemon
1 from Texas: shellibelli
1 from Netherlands: Jac_Mirko_NL
1 from Colorado: mccaber
1 from Croatia: dodosock

review by yeah

15 years ago

Performance

This historical concert was broadcasted on the radio. U2 wanted to play Sarajevo ever since 1993 and it shows. Bono mentions the name of the city in virtually every song and the band, especially Edge, is willing to deliver a remarkable performance.

The show starts out with with a blistering performance of Mofo and until Last night on earth all goes well, the set so far is standard and the crowd is cheerful. Bono's voice seems a little raspy, but nothing distracting...

Then during LNOE his voice just cracks - that doesn't detain him and Edge from bursting out "you gotty give it away" from the top of their lungs, though. One feels transported back in the 80's, when the whole band would yell out the "I can't stop to dance" part of Two Hearts...

The follwing songs, Until the end of the world and NYD have Bono trying to sing softer, trying not to wreck his voice completely.
The performance of Pride is pretty remarkable: Bono speaks the verses and Edge fully-hearted sings the chorus. Before I still haven't found... Bono asks the crowd to help him sing and they enthusiastically fullfill his request. They also take the main voice when Bono starts to snippet Ben E. King's Stand by me.

The following All I want is you shows the pain Bono is going through. He adds a nice snippet of Jimmy Cliff's Many rivers to cross, nevertheless.

After an "accoustic" performance of Staring at the sun Bono goes backstage for medical treatment (cortisone) and leaves the stage to Edge who, instead of his usual Karaoke, delivers a solo performance of Sunday blooday Sunday on the B-Stage. It's the first and only appearance in Europe and the performance will later be released on the "If God will send his angels"-Single.

Miami is skipped and Bono comes back with an amazing performance of Bullet the blue sky. The medical treatment enhances his voice for a while.

Please contains the SBS drum snippet and the "Playboy Mansion" snippet during the Outro of Streets is replaced by Bono saying "Sarajevo" over and over again.

The band leaves the stage with a heartfelt "We wish you peace" only to come back for a top notch performance of Discothèque (Bono snippets 'Life during wartime' by the Talking Heads - terribly cynical).
As usual, the singer brings a girl on stage for If you wear that velvet dress, which contains the "I've got my own hands to pray"- part, and doesn't let her go until the end of With or without you - where his voice cracks again.
The next song is a surprise: Miss Sarajevo makes it full band live debut and Brian Eno joins U2 on stage for the performance. Contrary to some rumours floating around prior to the show, Pavarotti isn't there, pictures of him get shown on the huge screens and an ancient grammophone is placed on the b-stage.

Hold me..., Mysterious Ways and One finally close a remarkable show that has seen Bono losing his voice but Sarajevo getting back it's voice in the world...
Several goosebump moments mark the show and it goes into history as the most relevant show in years.


Sound

My review is based on the lossless version of the recording provided by U2start.
It's a remaster of the FM-broadcast. Most versions suffered from some static, clicks and pops, but this version doesn't have them. There's no commercials, jingles or announcers and the stupid disc split between Please and Streets doesn't seem to be there.

Recording: "Sarajevo [noiseless remaster]" - 5 stars

Audience

The audience does their best to help Bono through the concert. Even though the majority of the people didn't even come to see especially U2 perform, they sing along with every song and react with huge noise everytime they feel Bono is having problems.
Remarkable moments are during ISHF, Stand by me and the end of mysterious Ways.


Overall

This is a must have bootleg.
Highlights: Gone, Last night on earth, Pride and One.
The whole show is really emotional and one can feel the special ambiance.

"Lowlight": Together with the opening night in Las vegas, this show gave birth to the myth that Bono's voice was really bad during the Popmart.


all reviews

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Welcome to our audio page, on this page you can download lossy (MP3) and sometimes even the lossless (mostly FLAC) audio recordings (also known as bootlegs) of this show. The available recordings are sorted on the type of recording and the quality of the recording.

  • Recordings available: 3
  • Show downloads: 7011

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"Sarajevo [noiseless remaster]"

  • Origins: FM Aerial Broadcast, CD Silver
  • Credits: noiseless (Remasterer)
  • Equipment: Harbal (Sound Editor), Exact Audio Copy EAC (Sound Editor), Trader's Little Helper (Sound Editor), Steinberg Mastering Edition (Audio interface)
  • Lineage: Silver CD "Sarajevo" > EAC > flac (8) > wav > Steinberg ME > Har-Bal > Waves S1 & L3 > CD Wave > TLH > flac (6)
  • Quality based on reviews:
  • Downloads: 288
View info file

Audio / FLAC

Bit depth: 16, sample rate: 44100, channels: 2
Download via Mega.nz

"Sarajevo [noiseless remaster]"

  • Origins: FM Aerial Broadcast, CD Silver
  • Credits: noiseless (Remasterer)
  • Equipment: Harbal (Sound Editor), Exact Audio Copy EAC (Sound Editor), Trader's Little Helper (Sound Editor), Steinberg Mastering Edition (Audio interface)
  • Lineage: Silver CD "Sarajevo" > EAC > flac (8) > wav > Steinberg ME > Har-Bal > Waves S1 & L3 > CD Wave > TLH > flac (6) > wav > mp3@192-32000Hz (itunes)
  • Quality based on reviews:
  • Downloads: 5995
View info file

Audio / MP3

Bit rate: 192, bit depth: 16, channels: 2
Download via Mega.nz
Audio samples

"Miss Sarajevo "

  • Origins: FM Aerial Broadcast, CD Silver
  • Credits: Ultimate Sound (Silver Manufacturer)
  • Lineage: Ultimate Sound - US 230997 A/B (silver cd) > Easy CD-DA Exctrator > fre:ac > mp3
  • Downloads: 471
View info file

Audio / MP3

Bit rate: 256, bit depth: 16, sample rate: 44100, channels: 2
Download via Mega.nz
Audio samples

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photos by Massimo Sciacca (8)

View entire set | added: 6 months ago
  1. U2 in Sarajevo
  2. U2 in Sarajevo
  3. U2 in Sarajevo

photos by Kevin Davies (6)

View entire set | added: 13 years ago
  1. Sarajevo 1997
  2. Sarajevo 1997
  3. Sarajevo 1997

photos by unknown (1)

View entire set | added: 9 years ago
  1. Soldiers in attendance of Sarajevo show