Nele Karajlic Falls Off Stage: 'Now I've Gotten Old'
Nele Karajlic lost his balance and fell off the stage at the very start of his set at Zemun Fest, on the Zemun Quay. Smiling, he told the crowd: 'I've fallen before, but now I've gotten old.'
Nele Karajlic fell off the stage at the very start of his performance at Zemun Fest. The musician lost his balance the moment he walked out in front of the crowd on the Zemun Quay, on Saturday evening, August 22. He got back up quickly and continued the concert, immediately turning the fall into a joke, as reported by Direktno, which published the news that same evening.
Karajlic took the stage after a set from hip-hop duo Who See and rapper Edo Maajka. According to Zemun Fest’s official schedule, Who See opened at 8 p.m., Edo Maajka followed at 9:30 p.m., and Karajlic’s concert was set for 10:30 p.m. He had barely started his first song when he slipped and fell.
Security staff rushed over immediately, but the musician was not injured. Smiling, he addressed the audience.
I’ve fallen before, but now I’ve gotten old, Nele Karajlic said from the stage, right after the fall.
The show then carried on at its usual pace. Karajlic returned to the stage and played the full concert, at one point even climbing onto the stage rigging, as he often does.
Kurir and Srpskainfo reported on the incident only on Monday, August 24, without giving an exact date in the text itself. Direktno published the news the same evening the fall happened, on Saturday, August 22, which makes that the most reliable date.
The Zemun Quay was not the last stage of Zemun Fest that night, nor the festival’s last of the season. The event ran from August 19 to 23 across four locations: Veliki Trg, Zemun Quay, Magistratski Trg and Zemun Park. The program at Zemun Quay continued on Sunday, August 23, with another concert, so Karajlic’s Saturday set was neither the closing act of the festival nor of the stage itself.
Over its five days, Zemun Fest hosted a wide-ranging music program. Alongside Who See, Edo Maajka and Karajlic, the Zemun Quay stage also featured Partibrejkers, Regina, Devito and Nipplepeople. On Sunday, August 23, the same stage hosted Cotton Pickers, Baby Lasagna and 2 Soma, closing out the festival.
Second Zemun Show in Over Four Decades
For Karajlic, the concert carried special personal weight. According to Srpskainfo, this was only his second performance in Zemun in a career spanning more than four decades. He first played there back in 1980.
The day before the show, in an interview with RTS, Karajlic revealed that this would be only his second concert in Zemun, not his first. He also said the weather would not matter much as long as the crowd created a good atmosphere, adding that the temperature in the venue always rises when the mood is good.
That night’s set list drew on the catalog of Zabranjeno Pusenje, the band Karajlic co-founded and for which he remains widely recognized across the region. The band became one of the defining names of the Sarajevo rock scene in the 1980s, and Karajlic still regularly performs tracks like “Zenica Blues” and “Balada o Pisonji i Zugi” at his shows. Alongside the old hits, the set that night also included songs from his more recent solo material.
The crowd at Zemun Quay moved through several different musical styles that night, from Who See’s hip-hop, through Edo Maajka, to a rock set laced with the humor and satire that has defined Karajlic since the 1980s.
Footage of the fall soon surfaced on TikTok, titled “Free Fall in Zemun.”
This was not the first time something like this has happened to the musician on stage, as he himself hinted with his reaction. This time, the incident left no consequences for the show or for Karajlic, who brought the concert to a close without further interruptions.
