Aahh, early summer in Istanbul. The sun is shining, the weather is sweet. And it’s weekend festival season. Yeeeaaah.
This Saturday, Parkorman, home to the Hidrellez festival two weeks ago, hosted the Babylon Soundgarden Festival – and equally excellent it was too. On entering the festival grounds, a swing band greeted festival goers and as we bopped along to its rhythm, making a bee line for the drinks tent, we early birds did catch our worms, in half price drinks until 5pm which alongiside the sunny vitamin D enabler of serotonin was to spell a feel-good introduction to the festival.
Baba Zula kicked off the proceedings, with their anarchic cacophony of Turkish folk, drums, cymbals and psychedelic rock. Last time I saw this band in the enclosed Babylon venue, I craved the freedom a festival ground could give them, for they are a popular music-beast, but being the first band on the line-up at the all-too-bright and sunny 4pm was not all that suitable to their sound. Like a fine wine uncorked too early, the band did not metamorphose into the dark, hypnotizing, heart-thumping crowd charmer it would surely have been had they played after dark, when that magical night time feeling descends.
If anything, it was the choice of bands and timings which could have been rejigged to have made the festival perfect. Up next on the main stage came Ilhan Erşahin’s Istanbul Sessions, a band of versatile musicians chorusing a masterful solo saxophonist, bringing dirty dive-bar jazz into the sunny outdoors. Straight after, we hot trotted over to the Shake n Roll stage where Istanbul’s Lindy Hoppers, a group of young, hip and enthusiastic dancers, who have brought swing dancing fever to Istanbul, were flexing their feet, the girls flashing their 1940s lipsticked smiles and arranging their hair waves before exploding like fireworks in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it frenzied dance, legs in the air, skirts over their heads, jumping meters high, tandem bike pair dancing, the boys pulling jokey 1920’s silent era Chaplin shenanigans to the sounds of a DJ spinning a fine cocktail of Ella Fitzgerald ‘When I get low,I get high’ swing jazzy tunes. The lindy hoppers put on a real party, having everyone on their feet, dancing, clapping, smiling, and feeling decidedly good.
Back in the festival world, Kings of Convenience were about to go on the main stage. I spent my university years crying over lost loves to the soundtrack of these ‘two beautiful voices blended in perfection’, to use a lyric from one of their own songs, and so it seemed had done most of the crowd, who positively un-beautifully and un-perfectly were singing along to the songs. Something which came as an irritation and, if you excuse the pun, an in-convenience to the Norwegian performers, who on more than one occasion asked the crowd to tone down their festive noisiness so that their voices could be better projected. Again, although awesome, maybe Kings of Convenience were not the most suited festival band and one best left to more intimate spaces, where the appropriate emotions could be effectively brewed.
So it came as a relief to the hyperactive audience when De Votchka, a four-piece band from Colorado, came on stage, a fine conclusion to the night, sounding of a mix of indie, gypsy punk, creating a perfect atmosphere for the grounds where impromptu conga lines formed. Kate Bush ballerina-like dance moves soaring into the sky, hugging, kissing and dancing till the very end under the starry sky. An end which seemed to have come so fast on our dancing heels, we are left itching for more. What festival will scratch the itch next?
Irina Popa is a contributor for Yabangee
