My Impressions on maNga Avcilar Concert on OCt.10, 2012

It was excellent...My first night concert of maNga. 2 hours with them! A music feast! Wow!

The concert was generally a long version of Caddebostan concert almost a month ago. They played usual old songs from Sehr-i Huzun and from their self-titled first album. They didn't play new cover "Ya Evde Yoksan" unfortunately. But the surprise song for me is "All We Need is Everyone". Because they played the rock version of this song which was PERFECT!! I loved it so much!
This song is for ESC2010 which they prepared on order from TRT. From among 3 songs they chose "We Could Be The Same". By the way, the other one is "Fly To Stay Alive" which was called "Run" then.

All We Need Is Everyone

They could participate in ESC any time again with this version, it's that good in my opinion!
I have listened just the acoustic versions of "All We Need is Everyone" before. So the rock version impressed me very much. On Youtube, you can find Akustikhane and MTV Express versions of it. I have listened to it live for the first time, and it was remarkably excellent! Ferman once said that they would think to include it in the new albums in a radio interview, so I think this version will suit very well in the new album which will probably have a rock sound.

Fly To Stay Alive

They arrived on the stage 20 minutes late, due to the Istanbul's infamous super traffic jam! But Ozgur and Cem tweeted from the road saying that they had been in the traffic fighting to reach the campus for 5 hours and almost there! I got this news thru Twitter but not that everyone has mobile Twitter, so at 21:05 everyone started to whistle and clap which meant where the hell they were! Thank God, they were on stage at 21:20!

First songs were from this year's "e-akustik" album, Hosgeldin and Rezalet Cikarasim Var. Then they performed from Sehr-i Huzun and their first album, such as Dunyanin Sonuna Dogmusum, Tek Yon Sectigin Tum Yollar, Her Ask Olumu Tadacak, Uryan Geldim, Bir Kadin Cizeceksin, Bitti Ruya...

"Cevapsiz Sorular" and "Ben Bir Palyacoyum" were acoustic as usual with just Yagmur and Ferman...and the audience, of course! :)

Between these songs, Ferman who was very impressed by the fans' accompaniment during "Cevapsiz Sorular", made a little thank-you speech. He said that now he wanted to say something very sincerely and that the best part of being famous and recognized by people, making music & albums is sharing their songs with us.

CevapSiz Sorular / Ben Bir Palyacoyum

They played their old songs too hard. They were as if they wanted to tell us "we haven't changed our sound at all, we are the same hard maNga"!
They also performed some solos. Efe did a DJ performance and after that Cem did his solo on his bass and Yagmur joined him, too. After their solos, came "Dursun Zaman", which was a much-acclaimed hit song from their first album. It was a duet song with female pop singer Goksel. Goksel's contribution in the song with her unique voice was undeniable. Even though we like Ferman's voice very much, every time maNga performs this song without her, you feel something is missing. Once I have seen a video of a concert of Goksel in which she performed this song on stage with another no-name male vocal, still something was missing. I mean it's a Ferman-Goksel thing, it's like it's not meant to be performed with someone else!

Cem&Yagmur Solo / Dursun Zaman

When it was the turn for "We Could Be The Same", Ferman started to sing the slow intro, just like the duet with Orphaned Land at Ankara's AnkiRock Festival on Sept.21. Everybody in the arena joined and accompanied him as usual.
In the middle, he suddenly stopped his friends saying "one second, one second...I liked it very much! I want to do this part again! One more time? For me?" And he started the slow intro again. Everybody sang the intro along with him, again. Then he thanked the fans and the ESC version of WCBTS has started normally. In the middle of the song he tried to dance like a belly dancer which was very cute! :) Not the belly part but neck part was almost there! :)

We Could Be The Same

The concert has some interesting moments. One of them was about Ferman and his hat!
At the beginning, he came to the stage with an interesting hat on his head. This was a new hat on him. It was a bit chilly night, so he had a coat, a sweatshirt on him and underneath he had his usual black sleeveless undershirt that everybody loved. He had his hat on his head during the most part of the concert.

Everything has started when Ferman got down off the stage among the fans during the performance of "Evdeki Ses" (Noise in the House)! This was a first for me. I haven't seen anything like that before in any maNga concert videos, so I was so surprised that he was among the fans. We were a little behind, so I couldn't see what they did to him, but everybody especially girls was screaming and shrieking! :) You can see what they are doing to him in the official picture below. :)

When he got back to the stage, he hadn't got his precious hat on his head. He hastily finished the first half of the song (The video below was taken from the moment he was on the stage again).


And he asked unexpectedly "who took my hat?" in an angry-sounded voice a couple of times. He called the fan who took the hat to the stage, still angry-sounding, "Come on up here with the hat!" he said. The fan threw the hat back to him, but Ferman still wanted to have the fan on the stage. :) He said, "I didn't want it back, I said "come on up here!" laughing this time. In the meantime, Cem joined Ferman in the front and he called him too, pointing him.

Finally the boy came on the stage unwillingly. Ferman and Cem welcomed him on the stage, and Ferman shouted to us "He came all the way from Iraq!! Cheer for him, Istanbul!!" And he gave him a big hug! After that, he sang the last part of the song with his arms around the Iraqi boy's shoulders, "Sizin gibi delilere her gun bayram", which means "Every day is like bayram for the crazy people like you!". While singing this part, he was pointing the boy out with his finger! So was Cem! As if he wanted to mean that he was crazy enough to come all the way from Iraq to the concert! But we don't know the details about the boy. Maybe he was just a guest student at Istanbul University where the concert was held in the campus area. :)

But it was very spot-on that the boy was from so far away Iraq during just the right song for the situation! (Ferman named the fans "crazy people" (deli) on Twitter, because the fans are following them anywhere no matter what, so the Iraqi boy was also crazy!)
Well, after Ferman finished the song, he presented his hat to the boy with a very cute bow, like their signature "maNga Bow"! With a final hug, he saw him off from the stage.

The last trivial moment that needs to be mentioned was at the end. The last song was "Beni Benimle Birak". When it finished, they prepared to say finishing goodbyes. Ferman put his sweatshirt back on. They were still on the stage, but there were incredible noise and applause. The fans started to shout "One more! One more!". They wanted encore! Ferman said laughing "We didn't even get off the stage!".

And without any reluctance, when they took their instruments back again, Ferman said very nicely with a smile, "Friends, there is an accepted way of doing this encore thing! We finish our regular program, get off the stage, and then you applause and we come back! This is the way it should be! I think we are the first music band that give encore before even getting off the stage!" That was very funny! :) As an encore, they performed "Alisirim Gozlerimi Kapamaya". After that came their concert signature "maNga Bow", that they do at the closing of every concert and this is their way of showing respect to the audience which is very nice! It also shows how strong the bond among them is and together they're one! With their usual "maNga Bow", the 2-hour maNga feast was over! Now it was time to go back home with a feeling of emptiness inside and lots of visual material to share with the world! :)

Alisirim Gozlerimi Kapamaya