Stuff You Gotta Watch: Storming Sarajevo
Storming Sarajevo, which follows the Desert Storm Soundsystem, has a near-mythical tang to it. When Glasgow raver Keith Robinson takes his techno rig to Sarajevo in the weeks after a ceasefire brings tentative peace to Yugoslavia, he and his pals are carried across unfriendly borders and enemy terrain by the breath of good fortune and their youthful invincibility.
The gang are brazen in the face of border guard trouble (nothing a little light forgery can’t fix!) and all smiles when their vehicle breaks down in sub-zero Slovenia. Somehow, they keep on trucking: past UN soldiers, down a treacherous mountain pass, and finally arriving in Bosnia in one piece. In Sarajevo they receive the warmest of welcomes, cheered on as they tour the city’s bombed-out streets blasting hard techno. Keith’s narration makes the madcap endeavour seem perfectly straightforward – everyone deserves to enjoy music, he points out, not least those in the midst of war (one which in fact had yet to reach its brutal nadir).
Much of this 30-minute travelogue feels either historic or nostalgic, from the images of war-torn Europe to the endless smoking of cigarettes. But what's particularly notable is the sense of freedom that drives their actions; an anti-authoritarian ethos that feels quite shocking now, and one which would lead Keith (who sadly died in 2017) to the French free party scene later in the '90s. Millennials could never.
Review by Chal Ravens. Check out the full archive of the Stuff You Gotta Watch column.