Bruce Dickinson

Scream For Me Sarajevo

Far more than a road trip! This all seems so daft now. But in 1994, Bruce Dickinson and his band Skunkworks were invited to play a gig in war-torn Bosnia. In Sarajevo, to be precise, which at the time had been under siege for nearly three years. Without even thinking of the consequences, Dickinson agreed to literally take his life (and those of his bandmates) and almost casually toss it away.

What this documentary does brilliantly is highlight just how dangerous the whole escapade was, and how out-of-touch the musicians were with what was really going on over in Bosnia. Forced to travel in the back of a van, and then get on stage in front of crazy metalheads who’d been starved for so long of live entertainment, they faced the real danger of bombs and bullets.

It was a foolhardy mission that smacks of part Spinal Tap and part utterly terrifying. But through a combination of new interviews and footage from the period, Scream For Me Sarajevo is compelling viewing.

Malcolm Dome