YU Rock Misija

YU Rock Misija (known in English as YU Rock Mission) was the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's contribution to Bob Geldof's Band Aid campaign, which culminated with the Live Aid concert. It consisted of recording the "Za milion godina" single and staging a concert held at Red Star Stadium on 15 June 1985, both featuring top acts of the Yugoslav rock scene. The proceeds from both the single and the concert were given to Band Aid.

YU Rock Misija participants during the recording of the "Za milion godina" video.

Background

Talking about how YU Rock Misija came about, rock critic Peca Popović stated in an interview for the Rockovnik documentary TV series:

YU Rock Misija was our response to what was going on at the end of 1984 and the beginning of 1985, when the campaign of solidarity with the hungry in Africa got initiated. Globally, it was done by Bob Geldof. Locally [in Yugoslavia], some people at the 1984 Opatija Festival agreed something should be done. A [general] agreement was reached, but they weren't exactly sure what should be done and how it should be done, so some of them came to seek my opinion. I said: It's simple, we should make a record, release it as part of an issue of the Rock magazine thereby selling it in the same number of copies Rock is printed in, and then put on a concert.[1]

"Za milion godina"
"Za milion godina"
Single by YU Rock Misija
B-side"Za milion godina (Instrumentalna verzija)"
Released1985 (1985)
GenrePop rock
LabelPGP-RTB
Songwriter(s)Dragan Ilić, Mladen Popović
Producer(s)Saša Habić

The song, entitled "Za milion godina" ("For a Million Years") was composed by former Generacija 5 keyboardist and leader Dragan Ilić, and the lyrics were written by Mladen Popović,[1] who had previously written lyrics for Denis & Denis, Oliver Mandić and other acts,[2] and was, at the time, an editor of the show Hit meseca (Hit of the Month).[3]

In an interview for Rockovnik, Ilić stated:

Thanks to the institutional support, mainly from Radio-Television Belgrade (RTB) and [its in-house record label] PGP-RTB, we made the song, [...] and we gathered literally the best in former Yugoslavia, and in three days we did the video, the music, the arrangements.[4]

A large number of musicians took part in the recording, mostly as vocalists. The song was played by Ilić (keyboards), his former bandmates from Generacija 5, Dragan Jovanović (guitar), Dušan Petrović (bass guitar) and Slobodan Đorđević (drums), and Vlatko Stefanovski of Leb i Sol (guitar solo).[5]

The song was produced by Saša Habić.[5] It was released on a 7-inch single, with the instrumental version of the song as the B-side, with the 75th issue of the Rock magazine.[5] The cover was designed by cartoonist and designer Jugoslav Vlahović.[5]

Personnel

Additional personnel

Notable absences
  • Bora Đorđević and Goran Bregović, leaders of Riblja Čorba and Bijelo Dugme, respectively — two of the most popular Yugoslav bands at the time — openly refused to take part in the song recording.[6] It was later revealed that Đorđević's refusal may have been based, at least partly, on his wrong assumption about the project being government-initiated, unaware that Yugoslav musicians and industry people started it on their own accord.[7] In a 1985 interview, published before the song recording, he stated:

No, I won't [appear on the record]! I took part in a [previously held] show organized to raise funds for the Ethiopians, and that's enough as far as I'm concerned. Everybody's initiating some kind of campaigns to help them, and no one is trying to help Yugoslavia! I will play day and night for free, for charity, for whatever you want, but only after they lower our [musicians'] monstrous taxes, after they allow us to import musical instruments, after they give us apartments... When we're needed to play for charity – we musicians are great, but otherwise we're [treated like] shit! If they'd finally give us the culture worker status, we could play for free, with pleasure![8]

However, both Đorđević and Bregović, alongside Bijelo Dugme vocalist Mladen Vojičić "Tifa", showed up for the video shoot and can be seen in the video for the song.[6]

I oppose it. In my opinion, the whole thing's a manipulation without moral or economic justification. Americans are now like bosses. Here's the money, right? Those mother... Should I now look at those troubadours drunk with joy [referring to Live Aid], giving away 0.03% of their paycheck [...] They won't give up smoking Marlboro, but are willing to give something [supposedly] out of solidarity, something they will get back in several months, in the form of raw materials or manpower. They will sell food to Somalia so the Somalis can buy arms from them. [...] It would be like me robbing a man on the street, leaving him 200,000 million US dollars in the hole thus forcing him into starvation. And after five years I meet him again, and now I give him two Yugoslav dinars so he can survive. It's idiotic. They will always be willing to show solidarity as long as others are hungry.[9]

It stung me and hurt me when they didn't invite me to YU Rock Misija, because I believe I could have, not as a singer but as a songwriter, I could have written at least a strophe...[10]

  • Dragan Ilić stated that Azra leader Branimir "Džoni" Štulić was not invited to participate in the song recording because he was at the time living in Netherlands.[7]
  • Footage from the studio recordings show Ekatarina Velika bass guitarist Bojan Pečar being present on the recordings for most of the time, although neither him nor any other of the band members took part in the song.[11]

"Za milion godina" music video

The video shoot for the "Za milion godina" track took place on 29 April 1985 at Television Belgrade's studios in Košutnjak.

The concert

The corresponding charity concert was held on Red Star Stadium on 15 June 1985, a little less than a month before Live Aid.[1] Beside the musicians who participated in the song recording and the bands they were members of, other acts performed as well.[1] Some 20,000 spectators attended the concert.[12] The concert featured, in the following order:[12]

The concert lasted for eight hours and was broadcast live by Radio Television of Belgrade.[1] The concert was also broadcast in Cuba and Czechoslovakia.[13]

In an interview for Rockovnik, Dubravka Marković, an editor of the show Hit meseca, stated about the concert:

We had problems with the weather. It was raining, then it stopped. The second problem was that the Red Star Stadium management people did not allow the crowd to get out on the pitch, so the audience and the performers shouted at each other from the opposite ends of the stadium.[14]

Bajaga i Instruktori frontman Momčilo Bajagić stated about the concert:

They didn't let the crowd onto the pitch, so we [performers] got positioned at the stadium's western stand while the crowd was opposite us at the eastern stand. All of which was a 'brilliant' solution because we'd look out from the stage over the empty pitch without even being able to see if there's anybody on the other side. And the echo was so huge, I remember Milić Vukašinović cursing into the microphone while we were live on air because he thought someone turned on the delay. When you would say 'good evening', the people over on the east stand heard it as 'good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening.....'.[15]

Vukašinović, performing with his band Vatreni Poljubac and dissatisfied with constant echo, stopped playing in the middle of the song "Živio Rock 'n' Roll" ("Long Live Rock 'n' Roll"), saying angrily into the microphone: "It's not good... Fuck it, it's not good!".[1] His outburst was criticized by a large part of the public.[12][13]

Airing during Live Aid

The song was, alongside a corresponding message from Belgrade, conveyed by Mladen Popović, aired on Wembley Stadium during Live Aid concert,[1] between Run–D.M.C. and Black Sabbath performances in Philadelphia.[6]

Funds raised and legacy

According to Peca Popović, the funds raised from the sales of the "Za milion godina" single were US$256,000 and further US$170,000 from the concert tickets, for a grand total of US$426,000.[16]

In 2007, Serbian critic Dimitrije Vojnov named "Za milion godina" one of ten most important records in the history of Yugoslav rock music, writing:

This project is one of the best indicators of how developed Yugoslav rock scene used to be, because with it, our pop and rock performers managed to start a relevant charity campaign and join a global movement, which featured representatives from the developed scenes. Today, it would be completely absurd to gather our performers of this genre and expect them to articulate something which could be notable at the local level. [...] In the video [...] everybody is smiling and dancing, and no one's face tells what would happen to us soon after. Besides political unity [in Yugoslavia], this video shows the unity of the scene, where Bijelo Dugme isn't strictly, militantly separated from Idoli, which is what would later happen, when all other separations become militant. In extreme case, this project remains a symbol of the time when we were helping the people in need, and several years later we were the ones who were receiving aid from charity projects of this type.[17]

In 2011, Mladen Popović made a similar statement for the documentary series Rockovnik:

It was significant that, at the time, we were the ones helping the people in need, and, unfortunately, only several years later, it was us receiving [humanitarian] aid from the world.[18]

The piano version of "Za milion godina" appeared at the end of the last episode of Rockovnik, where it follows footage of former Yugoslav rock acts.[19]

See also

References
  1. Rockovnik, "Pogledaj dom svoj, anđele (Jugoslovenska rock scena 1985)", YouTube.com
  2. Mladen Popović at Discogs
  3. "Yugoslavian Aid", about YU Rock Misija at live-aid-dvd.com
  4. Vesić, Dušan; Rančić, Sandra (2004). "Strana XXV, "Pogledaj dom svoj, andjele" Rock scena 1985". Rockovnik. Retrieved 27 March 2018.
  5. "Za milion godina" at Discogs
  6. "Jugoslavenski doprinos Live Aidu '85", muzika.hr
  7. "YU Rock Misija – 30 godina od sna", balkanrock.com
  8. V. Petković, "Bora Đorđević: Nisam prodao dušu Đavolu!
  9. Petković, Vanja. "Nije lider nego kompilator". Džuboks (in Serbian). Gornji Milanovac: NIP Dečje movine (193): 6–7.
  10. "Đorđe Balašević (intervju, 1. deo): Pesma traje dok se ne otpeva (1986)", yugopapir.blogspot.com
  11. "YU ROCK MISIJA: kako je snimljena ploča ZA MILION GODINA". Hit meseca. Belgrade: RTB (1985).
  12. "YU Rock Misija". Rock (in Serbian). Belgrade: NIP politika (76): 3.
  13. "YU rock misija: TV prenos spektakularnog koncerta preuzele Kuba i Čehoslovačka" yugopapir.com
  14. Vesić, Dušan; Rančić, Sandra (2004). "Strana XXV, "Pogledaj dom svoj, andjele" Rock scena 1985". Rockovnik. Retrieved 27 March 2018.
  15. Vesić, Dušan; Rančić, Sandra (2004). "Strana XXV, "Pogledaj dom svoj, andjele" Rock scena 1985". Rockovnik. Retrieved 27 March 2018.
  16. Vesić, Dušan; Rančić, Sandra (2004). "Strana XXV, "Pogledaj dom svoj, andjele" Rock scena 1985". Rockovnik. Retrieved 27 March 2018.
  17. "10 najvažnijih SFRJ ploča", Dimitrije Vojnov, pressonlie.rs
  18. Vesić, Dušan; Rančić, Sandra (2004). "Strana XXV, "Pogledaj dom svoj, andjele" Rock scena 1985". Rockovnik. Retrieved 27 March 2018.
  19. Rockovnik, "Gotov(o) je! Rock scena u Srbiji 2000. (i šta je bilo posle)", YouTube.com
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