ladies,we're back! sorry for the two week delay but we had great time,saw Big 4 live and literally witnessed history
and we needed time to recover
actually,i started writing this as soon as i got home,but then i had to go to my aunts' and didn't take my pc with me,so i finished it today.
anyways,here's a summary of what happened:
DAY ONE: we had an exam that day(25th) on 9:00 and the doors would be opened on 14:00,so we went to school for the exam(and we passed the exam
),then got on the bus and the train to the stadium.
we had a local band Blacktooth(a Pantera influenced band),Stone Sour,Pentagram(again a local band which is known as Mezarkabul outside of Turkey),Alice in Chains and Rammstein that day.
when we arrived there,we saw a huge queue which was apparently for Rammstein.i'm not a Rammstein fan,actually i don't like such mainstream and industrial bands and when i see kids going crazy for such bands,that pisses me off!
anyways,we went inside.we weren't downstage,but we were pretty close to the stage.Blacktooth was ok,it was rainy that day and people just started to arrive,so the vocalist tried to warm people up.anyways,their 45 min setlist ended with Pantera's Walk(i'm not sure if it was the last song though) and then Stone Sour was on the stage after a 30 min break.
i didn't know much about Stone Sour(actually,i didn't even know the vocalist was Corey Taylor
) but they were awesome!
then,the most popular heavy metal band in Turkey-Pentagram- was on the stage.we heard that it was their vocalist's last performance(who is a great vocalist by the way,he sounds just like Bruce Dickinson),but he wasn't on the stage for the first 3-4 songs.they did Heaven and Hell and Holy Diver covers,but it was an awful performance.
well,we were actually there for AIC for the first day,and i can say that it was one of the best performances i have ever seen.Jerry was awesome (
) and the whole band kicked ass..it's really hard to explain how we felt while watching them play "We Die Young" (and many more of course) in such a misty atmosphere
Bet wanted to see rammstein too,but i rejected.i don't like the band,actually i wouldn't mind seeing their performance(which was great btw,they say so) ,but my little bro was waiting for me that evening,so we had to leave.
DAY TWO: i woke up with my imaginery sword in my hand and battle drums in my ears that day,cause we were gonna see "Manowar"
Bet came and we left. While we were waiting in line in front of the stadium,a reporter came,asked if we want to talk about the festival and our favorite bands, we said ok and he interviewed us
i don’t know if it was broadcasted or not,but we were in the first row that day(although there were people downstage,in front of us) and lots of people took pics and vids of us. Anyways,it was ok cause we had a pretty good view of the stage
the day started with a local band that i've never heard of,Murder King. well,they murdered my ears
then,Volbeat -an awesome Danish band- came up. They’re an experimental metal band(i could sense the Johnny Cash and Slayer influences) which means i’m definitely gonna be a huge fan of their music.
After Volbeat,we started to feel the excitement of seeing Manowar,and most importantly Accept(which we were waiting for quite a long time) but there was a huge problem out there: we had to listen to Hayko Cepkin(aka Turkish Marylin Manson-or worse than that
). He came up and a hour long torture began. Everyone was quite excited for Manowar(those guys are worshipped in Turkey),Hayko felt it(saw and heard people's reactions obviously
) and had to admit that he too was waiting to see them,but they had an hour long time so they had to play
While the stage was being prepared for Manowar,Bet and i were trying to warm ourselves up for “beefy metal”
we aren’t huge Manowar fans –i mean that “hail to the king,we’re sons of odin,blood is upon my steel,we’re fuckin warriors” kinda feeling- but i love most of their songs, and it’s awesome to sense that atmosphere –ya know,your fists up in the air,screaming-. When they came upon the stage with their cameraman(they were filming the performance) the audience was on fire. they truly rocked the stage. Even Bet went crazy and we were both so fucking happy
then,after the vocal solo(and various instruments solo) we saw Joey alone on the stage and all of a sudden,he started to speak in Turkish
i’m gonna translate what exactly he said later,but he simply said "fuck off" to the Big 4
Anyways,the Manowar performance was awesome,but we were there for Accept that day. The audience was very tired after Manowar(even us) but participation was ok. Wolf was awesome (
) and Mark’s voice is almost the same as Udo’s
.whole show was legendary,i can say that it’s the best performance i’ve seen in years.
so tired but so fuckin happy, we got on the train back home!
DAY THREE: our plan was to wake up at 5 am and stand in line till the doors open. But we couldn’t.
Mainly because of my brother(he was with me and i had to wait till he wakes up so that i can leave him to my aunt’s) and because of our sore throats,necks and all the aching bones!
Anyways,we woke up at 10 am,had our breakfast,say goodbye to my little bro and got on the train to İnönü Stadium! We were so damn excited because of the Big fuckin four and mainly because of Megadeth(both Bet and myself are huge fans,missed the 2001 and 2005 shows and were thinking we’d never see the “lion-man” live
)
We got there at 1 pm and saw the looooongest queue ever! it was the greatest crowd we’ve ever seen and we understood that it was quite impossible for us to take our places in the first rows(cause we were at the end of the queue
) however, we still don’t know how but we suddenly got into the crowd and found ourselves about 1 km closer to the front of the crowd
but what a mistake! We were smashed,it was damn hot and everyone was sweaty (well,Blackie was damn right when he said “rock’n roll’s supposed to be sweaty and smelly”
) finally we got in with lots of bruises but still with a big grin on our faces
i bought a festival shirt (for about 20 euros
),wore it and then we staring to search for the best place to watch the show. Unfortunately, third day was the most crowded day and although we were at the front of the queue,we saw that the field was half full! So we decided to stand in front of the second barriers(which is pretty far away from the stage) instead of standing among the people trying to see the stage because of a smelly guy 5 inches taler than you
The sun was shining that day and the day before(first day it was rainy and some corroded minded dickheads thought we were damned because of our satanic feast
) so we tried to find shelters to protect us from the sun. We found some red plastic Vodafone hats(which became the mascot of the festival
) i was looking like a retard (but a cool one) with my Sonsphere tee,my sunglasses and my hat(and Bet with her Rust in Peace tee and her bandana)
We were waiting impatiently, as the stage was being prepared for Anthrax(obviously, we didn’t watch two of our local bands before that
) , a young red headed lady approached us, asked if we knew English and then told Bet to take a pic of her and me with the whole festival field. She said ok,took the pic and we started chatting with the lovely lady. She said if we knew the magazine Kerrang(hell yeah,Bet and i looked at eachother,i’m sure we both saw the Blackie covers
) we said yeah, she said she was working for Kerrang(later we learned that she also worked-or still works- for Metal Hammer) and she was travelling all across Europe for the summer festivals. She said she interviewed with most of the bands, she showed us her pics with Corey Taylor, Alice in Chains,Hayko Cepkin(well,our Marylin Manson
) and said that she was gonna interview with Megadeth! But before that, she had to shoot some videos(of people screaming,talking about the festival and such) and asked us if she could interview with us. We said sure, and i started talking(like nobody on earth could stop me
) Bet was stoned, she could only say a few words ( and i talked too much
) but the lady (her name was Katie btw) was very pleased,said our English was great and she felt very bad cause she didn’t know Turkish
we also helped her to find more people for the vid,she asked for help and we immidiately started walking around the area asking people if they wanted to be in a video(and said that the lady was a Kerrang interviewer-yeah,you guessed it right,they all “knew” Kerreang
) we found lots of people for her and made her even more happy cause the crowd was fucking awesome
After that, Katie said she had to leave,asked our names and told us to write them down,asked if she could find us there later, we said yeah and she left.
What a day!
Anthrax was on the stage!
We ain’t huge fans, but i love Belladonna and was very happy to see him performing. (Honestly, Joey was the best frontman along with Hetfield.) Besides, those guys were there, it was my first time to see Anthrax and they’re part of the Big fuckin 4!
Megadeth was next! God, after all those years,we were gonna see the Big Guy, Junior, Chris and Shawn! i was like “i gotta pee” all day and i was very thirsty but forgot about all of my little problems when i saw the stage preparing for Deth(and the backdrop was changing-it was the Endgame backdrop- :hbdude)
The soundcheck lasted for hoours(really they were 30 mins late) and they had some very serious sound problems, Dave was so fucking pissed off(they said he kicked some amps but we were so far away that we couldn’t see it) it was my first Deth show,my childhood hero was there and i didn’t fuckin care about anything (well,although i couldn’t hear the vocals-especially Wake Up Dead-)
And yeah
i cried when i heard Holy Wars !
After Megadeth,we were feeling kinda numb,we were very tired and we could hardly speak because of our throats. But i could still feel the electric in the air,that concussion could easily be felt because;
Slayer was next!
Again, i’m not a huge Slayer fan,but their debut album was one of the first metal albums that i listened to when i was a kid (kinda scary,huh?
) so deep down inside,i have a soft spot for them. Always wanted to see them live,and there they were on stage !
As we were banging our heads for Slayer, Katie showed up. yeah,she made her way through the crowd,found us and she had a surprise for us. She went backstage to interview with Shawn Drover of Megadeth(she showed us the interview-well,Slayer was blasting so we could only see the 3-4 seconds of it without sound and we could hardly hear eachother) and mentioned about us. She showed our names to him,took a paper (on which wrote “Meet and Greet Room”
) and took a signature for us. We were so fucking happy,Bet was about to cry,she was shaking, we gave her a big hug,thanked her and then she went outside the crowd to have a beer. We both knew we wouldn’t see eachother again(well,at least that day) so we said farewell to eachother. We’re lucky that Bet and i could see eachother later,cause;
Metallica was next!
The crowd went crazy as they were waiting for Met. Well,the participation was great as Megadeth and Slayer were playing(Dave is simply worshipped here,as Katie stated out in her blog) but Metallica is something else (as most people call it, this ain’t the Big 4, it’s “3+1”
)
The lights went dim and the dark blue lights were on. We heard the intro and the ritual began!
Well, not so much to say about Metallica. They’re the biggest metal band for a reason. Their stage presence was perfect,everything was perfect. Hetfield is an awesome frontman,i don’t like Kirk as a guitar player but he’s great live. Lars is Lars and Rob is just awesome!
I saw them in 2008 and i think they were better then (don’t know why i think so,maybe it’s because it was my first time) but they played “Blackened” , “Trapped Under Ice” this time which caused a little trip back down in my memory,to the days when i was a kid and although i had no money(well,i still don’t have money
) i bought my first metal albums (And Justice for All and Ride the Lightening). I felt like i was in my room with my door locked,listening to those albums and dreaming
Yeah,i cried again
We waited for a Big 4 performance just like they did in Sofia,but it didn’t happen.
Do i complain?
Hell no!
It was the best day of our lives( and the other 2 days of course) and i wanted to thank all of those old fellas who made me who i am,helped me through bad times and made me feel happy!
Thank you guys!
Now i feel the passion more than ever!
Ain’t nothing gonna change forever
my metal heart!
9th July 2010, 11:24 pm
(joey pissed off lol 
So much to drool on in there... lots of wonderful bands! Pity for pissed off Dave, though! (gosh, how I hate when voice gets completely covered in live concerts 
),photos and the vid where you'll see me talking for 1-2 mins with my red hat and a stoned Bet 
Felt like having a trip back to 90s plus William's voice was indistinguishable from Layne's 
And pentagram's technical problems were bitter for it was the last performance of Murat İlkan, it's said that he has some health problems but I don't know what's going wrong with him.. 
No, he doesn't deserve being in the best heavy metal band that Turkey has seen so far 
Everyone in the stadium went crazy, you could see the expression of all "brothers everywehere; raise your hands into the air, we're warriors, warriors of the world!" without looking at their faces! 
All I know is.. We've seen Dave and Junior together, we made fools of ourselves in an international platform once again (okay we look way stupid in that vid 
First off, Accept! 
