Sikter

Sikter was an alternative rock band from Sarajevo, formed in 1990 as a punk rock project of a few students, which grew into one of the most successful Bosnian rock bands. The name translates roughly as "Buzz off!", and over the years the band changed both its line-up and its style many times, moving through punk, alternative rock, funk, disco and house.

The band was born at a party at the Sarajevo Academy of Fine Arts in spring 1990, where the pop rock band Regina was due to play. Enes Zlatar, Igor Čamo, Faris Arapović and Davor Čolić took the stage, chased Regina off with the word "Sikter" and started to play. Their first songs were punk-flavoured parodies of Yugoslav pop hits, and for two years there was no fixed line-up.

During the war and the siege of Sarajevo the sound turned towards alternative rock, and Sikter was one of the most active bands on the city's club scene. They played the Rock Under Siege concert, opened for Bruce Dickinson in Sarajevo in 1994, and in 1995 recorded a video for "Pain in Brain", directed by Haris Pašović, which ran on MTV for months: the first video by a band from Bosnia and Herzegovina shown there. Stranded abroad that year, they played in the Netherlands, where they met Brian Eno, and Vasco Rossi invited them to his concert at San Siro in Milan.

After the war Sikter toured Italy with Rossi and played in Belgium, France and the Czech Republic. In 1997 they opened for U2 at Koševo stadium in Sarajevo and played with Bono, Jovanotti and Eno at the opening of the Pavarotti Music Centre in Mostar. Eno then helped them record their debut album in Mostar in 1998.

That album, Now, Always, Never, came out on 21 November 2000 to good reviews. Queen of the Disco (2002) followed, less warmly received because of its turn to disco. On the Gramofon label they released My Music (2005) with the single "Don't You Miss Me", and the video for "My Music" won a Davorin award in 2006. The DVD My Documents followed in 2006 and the last album, Ego Trip, in 2009 on Hayat Production.

Early in 2017 Sikter decided to disband and said goodbye with a farewell concert on 2 February 2017 in the studio of Bosnian national television. The final line-up was Enes Zlatar, Esad Bratović, Dragan Rokvić, Igor Čamo and Nedim Zlatar, with backing singers Leonardo Šarić and Dejan Kajević.