Rock The Nation

## Prelude

Rock the Nation Yugoslavia (1996 – 1998) was a concert organisation - branch of Rock The Nation ( Europe ) company.

Company was created in 1996. in Belgrade by Steffan Hattinger , Stanimir Lukic ( ex Bloodbath ) and Konstantin Polzovic with the aim of organising concerts of international bands in Belgrade .

At that time the war in Bosnia had just ended, Croatia had carried out ethnic cleansing against the Serbian minority and many refugees arrived in the territory of then-reduced Yugoslavia .

There were not anymore Explosive fanzine , Hard Metal magazine , even bands Bloodbath , Demoniac , Bombarder and many others stopped working.

Festivals like YU Metal Attack 1989. , Hard Metal festival or Balkan Horror Opera were past.

It was hoped that peace and stability would finally arrive and time had come to make plans for the future.

At that time no one could predict another NATO bombing campaign  in years to follow.

## 1996.

in 1996., there were demonstrations of the opposition against the then government on the streets of Belgrade, and every day the streets were full of protesters.

The first concert that will be organized is the Urban Dance Squad .

The concert was announced months in advance, in the Hall of the Cultural Center in Belgrade and all tickets were immediately sold out ( 1200 ) .

In agreement with the band, it was decided to make a second concert the next day and to record all the audio / video.

The second concert was also very exciting

Urban Dance Squad were very pleased with the recordings of the performance and asked and received permission to release the entire concert as a special live album-live in Belgrade 1996 for the major label Virgin.

Everyone was happy and asked Rock The Nation for the next concerts :

In following months we managed to book bands like Biohazrad  , Pro Pain , Spud Monsteres , Entombed , Mary Beats Jane , Gurd and many more.

at the end of 1996. Rock The Nation Yugoslavia receive offer to organize concert of US superstar band The Kiss.

## 1997.

Date for Kiss was set to 4th june 1997.

This meant that Rock The Nation would organize for the first time a concert of a group that brings its complete production including stage sound and technique in 10 or so trucks .

Biggest venue Belgrade fair was booked as well as few subside companies for export - import , security and various on site prepartaions

With the organization growing, costs grew . The concert received much publicity.

Ticket sales were not the best and the political and security situation in the country was not good.

Then Secretary of the US government threatened new sanctions during her visit to Belgrade, which was very negative on the public in relation to the US administration .

Kiss and their management became aware of all this and the question was whether the concert would be held or cancelled

A few days before the concert , trucks with equipment were stopped at the border, completely searched and some were not allowed entry due to incomplete documentation .

Problems multiply every day.

Despite all the problems Kiss arrived and held a concert .

What was happening behind the scenes and no one knew in public until recently , that there was a plan for members of the group to be kidnapped in Belgrade and for their ransom to be demanded millions of dollars.

The plan was organized by the local warlord mafia to stop the vehicle with the members of the group on the road ramp for the railway , but by difficult negotiations and contact with the security service this scenario was avoided.

Thanks to luck in all these circumstances, the concert was held, but the organizers suffered exceptional complications due to a difficult functional and expensive organizational system.

Less than 10,000 tickets were sold, representing only more than half of the visitors in venue.

After all that experience, Rock The Nation realized that it was not yet time for big and complicated concerts .

The situation in the state has become bad, with increasing threats of military intervention and imposing new international sanctions.

Later same year Rock The Nation organize another show , for band Ritam Nereda in Belgrade and tragedy strucks - few days before the concerts kid was killed in Belgrade and that unfortunate event was connected to nationalist groups which favorite band was Ritam Nereda

After after a dirty media campaign against the band, the concert was canceled and due to bad publicity, the group performed in Belgrade again only a few years later.

## 1998.

Rock the Nation organize only few more shows including festival Jaci Od Mrznje ( Stronger Than Hate  ) with band Pro Pain and another one canceled concert ( Virgin Steele /Riot ­)

After that decision is made to temporary turn off company .

At the end of the same year, the state of imminent war danger was declared in the state, which was a prelude to the Nato bombing that began in March 1999.

## After

Interestingly, thanks to a contract between Rock The Nation and state television, many of the Rock The Nation concerts were recorded and broadcast live and can now be found on video platforms .

Also the band Pro Pain included video recordings from the concert in Belgrade in their 2001 video release.

Rock The Nation Europe exists still today