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.

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 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.

Although the band were displeased with their performance and lead vocalist Bono had vocal difficulties, the concert was well received and was credited with improving morale among Bosnians.

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.

[2] Bosnian Serb militias, whose strategic goal was to secede from Bosnia and Herzegovina and unite with Serbia,[3] encircled Sarajevo with a siege force of 18,000[4] 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.

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.

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.

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.

[5][7] 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.

Maybe they will think about not letting it happen in their country, their city..." 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.

[9] 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.

[9] 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 over-stimulation.

[12] 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.

You were grabbed out of a rock concert and given a really strong dose of reality and it was quite hard sometimes to get back to something as frivolous as a show having watched five or ten minutes of real human suffering."

"[15] 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.

"[16] Some people were upset by the circumstances of Sarajevo and were motivated to join the War Child charity project, including U2 producer Brian Eno.

[22] Muhamed Sacirbey, the Bosnian Ambassador to the United Nations, helped U2 make arrangements,[23][17] playing an informal role as promoter and organizer.

"[22] According to news releases following the concert, the total net income for the show was US$13,500; however, tour promoter John Giddings noted that price did not include the costs of the production or transportation.

[26] As late as July 1997, U2 were pressured to accept an offer of approximately $4 million to perform in Basel, Switzerland on the date scheduled for the Sarajevo show.

[23][17] At showtime, a decision was made to open the stadium gates to all, allowing approximately 10,000 more fans who could not afford the concert or who had not purchased tickets in time to attend.

[22] In 2006, the Edge suggested that Bono's vocal troubles had been caused by laryngitis or by the stress of the previous few months of touring, though he later remarked that "it didn't really matter that our lead singer was under the weather because every member of the audience seemed to join in on every song.

[24] Bono ultimately returned to the stage alone for the next song, "Bullet the Blue Sky", and the band continued with renditions of "Please" and "Where the Streets Have No Name", which concluded the main set.

[20] During the song, the video screen showed images from Carter's Miss Sarajevo documentary, including footage of the girls taking part in the beauty contest and the banner reading "Please don't let them kill us".

[22] Despite the subpar performance, the Associated Press said, "For two magical hours, the rock band U2 achieved what warriors, politicians and diplomats could not: They united Bosnia.

"[35] Andrew Mueller of The Independent wrote, "For the first time since the start of the war in 1992, people more accustomed to seeing each other through the sights of a rifle were converging on the capital to listen to music together.

[38] Following the concert, President Izetbegović presented Bono with an honorary Bosnian passport, in recognition of his humanitarian efforts during the war.

[47] The 2023 documentary film Kiss the Future profiles the underground music scene in Sarajevo as a means of resistance and inspiration during the Bosnian War.

Directed by Nenad Cicin-Sain and co-produced by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck through Artists Equity, the film features commentary from Carter, who wrote the screenplay, along with interviews with three members of U2 – Bono, the Edge, and bassist Adam Clayton.