At noon on Tuesday 18 June, we boarded our flight to Brussels under some strange looks because, as always, we had put on our big boots and thick clothes in order to save the weight capacity of the suitcases. We settled in our seats, the captain pilot started to give information about the flight ‘Due to the weather conditions over Brussels, our flight is delayed  45 minutes. In addition, there will be some turbulences on the way, but there is nothing to worry about.’ Without realising it, the captain had briefly summarised not only the flight but also the weather conditions of Graspop 2024. We are not intimidated by either the turbulence or the muddy festival. We’ll headbutt the lightning, let’s go, we have work to do.

Indeed, we landed in a grey and cold Brussels with heavy rain. This year, as last year, we were going to be together with Ersay Uçak, the European conqueror of Paslanmaz Kalem. We hadn’t met him yet, but the never-ceasing rain was making him and us think the same thing: How will we pitch our tent tomorrow?

                June 19th – Wednesday

In the morning we woke up to ominous news from Graspop: First of all, today, Wednesday, June 19, all the activities that were to take place at GMM, such as the Welcome Party, were cancelled due to flooding. ‘Don’t come by car. In our opinion, don’t come with a tent either… Or better yet, don’t come at all.’ Look, GMM, we’ve seen this film, we don’t buy it. After a short exchange of ideas, and seeing the rain taking a break as a good omen, we boarded the train from Brussels central station: Yeah, we are coming. Here came one of my favourite moments: travelling to the holy land with a train full of metalheads! We were going to reach the town of Mol with a single transfer from Herentals. We met Ersay on the train, and after an hour and a half of travelling we arrived in Mol. By this time the weather had completely changed its character and started to resemble summer. The festival-goers gathered at the station were in a good mood. They were already lined up in the shuttle queue. Those who have been there know that there is a very important fact about GMM: The area where the festival takes place is quite far from the city centre. Normally it is 10 kilometres away. But if you take into account that the festival has rearranged the routes for logistical reasons and cut some roads, this 10 km distance becomes even longer. What does this mean? If you don’t have a car, you need a shuttle. As soon as we got off the train, we immediately got organised. Övünç took on the task of waiting in line for the shuttle with his suitcases, and we ran to Carrefour 200 mt away with Ersay. We had to buy at least enough provisions for 24 hours. The other metalheads getting off the train did not have a trace of the rush we had. They got off at the station, yawned and stretched, threw the 3 bags, 4 sacks, 1 tent that was not completely in its cover and the spare shoes hanging around the neck to the ground, took out the can of beer at 36,5 degrees from the pocket, opened it with pleasure, and took a sip as if saying ‘life is good’. Here is an individual who has never seen a metrobus in their life.

When Ersay and I finished our shopping of cans of various sizes and returned to Övünç, we realised that Mol Municipality had not felt the need to allocate many buses for the festival. Therefore, the queue was moving incredibly slowly. The 1 crate of beer at our feet ran out before we even saw the gate of the festival. When it was our turn for the shuttle, I had partially lost the motor skills to set up a tent, but adrenaline was going to be the cure for everything again.

And we enter

After 20 minutes of travelling, we poured into the gate of the campsite. This time we had another rush: Let’s set up the tent in such a place that it would be close to the festival gate but a little far from the stages, easy access to the toilets, but not smelly. ‘Sorry, no.’ The rains had flooded most of the tent area. Wherever we turned, we were driven away with ‘NO! NO! You can’t enter the rope-enclosed area!’ I had decided to cry when Övünç’s semi-nervous outburst determined our fate ‘Come follow me, it will be morning if we wait for them.’ We overtook the line of people looking for a dry place following an official, stepped on the gas and reached a lush green grassy area before anyone else. When the tent was erected and the glorious WSS flag was stretched between the two tents, my spirits were lifted. I didn’t know yet that this WSS flag would bring us good luck. The party begun.

June 20th – Thursday

On Thursday morning I woke up with a heavy head. Normally the rum I drink outdoors doesn’t give me a hangover. I think this heaviness I felt was the aftermath of our Dutch neighbours who dropped into our party at night and first locked us in with their super personal issues and then tried to provoke us with casual racism. As far as I understood from the way they lowered their gaze when we locked eyes again in the morning light, they regretted saying more than they intended…

Ersay wanted to take a photo with the WSS flag waving sweetly in the morning breeze. As it is usually with Övünç, the project immediately turned into a cool slo-mo commercial film. The video turned out so good that Loz shared the video on his account. Of course, this was the reason for a mini “halay” for us.

The day had started well. We were overjoyed that we were going to see our first concerts today! However, there was an unknown, as Surge Turkey representatives, Övünç and I had to get our press wristbands and photo passes. There was one thing that worried me a bit about this issue, which I hadn’t opened my mouth until now. ‘Let the time come…’ I kept postponing it. But it was finally time: The press guests had to check in, and this check-in office was somewhere on the edge of the rainbow, according to the e-mails sent to me. We told Ersay, ‘Dude, just go in and have fun. Our fate is unknown.’ Övünç and I started to search, where was this check-in office. We went to the main gate, we went to the security, we went to the VIP entrance, whoever we asked first looked at us like ‘I don’t know’. When we showed the map sent by e-mail, they confirmed all our fears by laughing and saying ‘This is miles away!’. Thank you, Kip Winger. My heart sank. But being very smart, I said, ‘I’ll mark this place on Google Maps. Then let’s take the shuttle to the city. On the way, when we get close to this spot, we can ask the driver to let us off and we do our business.’ There would be two problems with this plan:

1- The road to the city centre and the check-in point were in opposite directions.

2- It was already forbidden to get off the shuttle once on the road.

As a result, we suddenly found ourselves in the city centre, far away from both the festival and our wristbands. Anyway, we thought, let’s do another 24 hours of shopping while we are here, we exhausted the rations last night anyway. Then again, after a long shuttle queue and carrying the materials to the tent, we returned to the starting point 2 hours after our departure. I don’t tell you about the walk to the check-in office because even thinking about the 10 km. walk we did in the downpour makes me feel anxious. My problem is not the distance. My problem is that while we were here for a very limited time, such a simple thing was located so far away and we lost time. Shall I explain the check in process? ‘Your accreditation e-mail? OK. Your ID card? OK. Here is your wristband. Bye bye!’

Here was the anticipated moment! After all that, we finally stepped into the festival with our left foot. However we missed Dying Wish, Shadow of Intent, Alien Weaponry etc. The first band we saw was Health at the Metal Dome stage. Although this was one of the smaller stages of the festival, it was visually very impressive. Because the wall behind the stage was covered with an LED screen. In fact, this screen surrounded the band from both sides of the stage to cover the half walls on the sides. Moreover, they had an extremely high resolution image, which I guessed to be 16k or something. Of course, this was perfect for a band like Health, which wasn’t a crowded lot but whose music was atmospheric and sound was noisy. We completely forgot about the bright daylight outside and got caught up in the syhnths and danced. I remember this concert was the moment we uttered a phrase we would say 100 times more: ‘Man, this band should have been on the midnight slot’ If it was up to us, everyone would be at the midnight slot on top of each other.

When Health was over, Doro was still on the main stage. Doro, stop already. We escaped, and while we were escaping, we were curious to see why the festival goers were entering a different area through a secured gate. This was a separate area for tasting ‘Belgian Beers’. In 2014, I remembered such a ‘bar’ section from our first visit to GMM. That bar has expanded and become a garden. We went through the bag check by the security guards (why? We are already in the festival area) but we quickly realised that there was not much trickery in this area. We queued up at the Belgian speciality beers bar. The only thing on the menu that was different from the festival in general was Stella Artois beer. I love it so much, give it to me now. But you can’t just say give it to me, guys…

Now I’m going to explain the ‘GMM beer drinking formula’ that no one but those who have taken differential 101 will understand. I didn’t understand it either, I’m quoting from the lecture notes: The process should start with the purchase, but first we load money on the Cashless card. But the money is not in Euros. When you enter GMM, the currency changes. It becomes Skully. 1 Skully = 3,5 Euro. Not three. Not four. Three and a half. And why? There used to be a practical reason: In the 2010s, the festival sold tokens to all participants for their purchases. You’d pay euros and get this plastic tokens in return. These tokens, sorry Skullies, were probably 6-7 Euros each and could be broken in half.

Half a pint was half a Skully, one pints was one Skully. You gave a token, you got a pint. Now the system is completely Cahless. You’re given a card, you put your money in, all purchases are digital. So why is this Skully currency still around? I think it’s psychological. If the price of something is 1 Something it sounds cheap, if it’s 3,5 Euros it sounds expensive. Trying to multiply everything by 3,5 is a headache tho. Especially when some things are decimal numbers like 5,3 Skullies.

We sorted out the money issue (we couldn’t), now let’s go to the pub. Let’s have a regular beer first. When you say ‘Hello, I’d like a beer’, you are first asked for a yellow token. Not Skully, this one is different. Two of these yellow tokens are handed to you when you put your festival wristband on your wrist. If you say ‘What is this?’, the answer is ‘a measure to reduce rubbish’. Every time someone buys a new drink, they have to present either their empty glass or a yellow token. Except in the Belgian beer garden. Here the beers are served in very elegant plastic goblets that look like glass. It is forbidden to take them out of the garden into the festival area. If you haven’t finished your beer, they pour it into normal glasses at the door and take your glass away from you. Stella in my hand, while I was drinking it and trying to figure out how to get past the security guards and take this glass home, two security guards came to us. Classic, they couldn’t understand the language we were speaking, they asked where we were from. When I answered, they were sincerely surprised. They said, ‘Did you really come here of your own free will, without any pressure, leaving the beautiful Istanbul weather behind?’ At that time, the downpour was replaced by a light drizzle of rain. We didn’t want to be rude, we could only say, ‘Look, the rain has stopped. Seems like the sun will come out soon here as well.’ The tall one raised his head to the sky and laughed, ‘That’s right, here is the magnificent Belgian summer. Our warmest days,’. Look, I don’t want to sound like I’m talking about the weather all the time. Seriously, Belgian citizens are obsessed with this issue. They are rightly frustrated about it, they bring it up often.

My belief in Kerry King’s songs was close to my belief in God. But I was dying to see the band (I don’t know if I should call it a band). The reason: Mark Osegueda. I think he is one of the most valuable vocalists in thrash metal. He is a very lively person who can convey the same emotion both live and on record. It is reflected on the fact that he never gets old. Since King didn’t have enough songs to fill a set list, he had no choice but to play Slayer. The band quickly exhausted Kerry’s solo material. Then they played the most hit Slayer songs and proved to be a better cover band than the original. Because Mark sang and ‘performed’ the songs 10 times better than Tom. I’m not saying this because I’m annoyed with Tom’s stage presence and his bored state in recent years, I’m saying this because I don’t like Slayer, but Slayer is really humongous. No other concert came close to this in terms of crazy in the festival.

As you know, the Megadeth concert in Istanbul turned out to be a huge event. Tickets were sold out so fast that there was suspicion that it went on the black market. Because no one predicted that Megadeth would be in such demand in 2024. As someone who had the chance to witness the Istanbul concert, I can say, fuck yeah! They were that popular. I couldn’t believe my ears in Istanbul, it was the first time in years that I could hear Megadeth at this volume and Dave’s vocals at this clarity. After Istanbul, which was like a dream for me, GMM’s performance was a bit ‘meh’. The good thing was that the volume was high again and A Tout Le Monde was not on the setlist. Dave looked happy and relaxed. But he seemed a bit tired. He was focused on playing as many songs as possible. He didn’t chat a lot, but he wasn’t grim either.

The clock was slowly approaching one of the main reasons for being at this festival: Tool. As everyone who follows the metal media knows, Maynard has been on the headlines lately as a stubborn boomer: The photo and video bans he imposed on the audience. About a month before we came here, our dear mate Erdem went to see Tool in Amsterdam. The stories he told not only confirmed what we saw in the media, but also made me realise that the forbidding atmosphere in the concert hall was worse than what we gathered. But the festival business is different. Maynard didn’t even try to make any announcements, let alone that kind of persistence to ban any cameras. Since all three of us were Tool fans, we took our places in front of the stage, drunk and emotionally charged. Our expectations were at an all time high, but some bitter truths were also obvious: The limited festival slot with their songs averaging in 15 minutes, the fact that they don’t play Sober, the reality of the shitty last album. Nevertheless, the concert was quite amazing. You know how everyone creates a champions league setlist in their minds while imagining the concert of their favourite band? The setlist of this concert didn’t exactly match my champions league. (Not everyone is Metallica, they can’t do a separate tour for every setlist combination). Still, hearing Schism and Stinkfist live made us go crazy. It was admirable that the band worked together like a single organism. As is customary, the LED screens next to the stage were switched off (Satan, give me patience) and Maynard sang the songs hiding somewhere behind the drums. His hair and make-up was so beautiful, he should have strutted his stuff a bit. Since Övünç was a photo pass holder, he was allowed to use his camera in every area of the festival. Of course, since the audience didn’t know this, as Övünç drew the telephoto lens from his backpack as if it was Excalibur, there was a tension in the environment. We were drunk, the audience were drunk, Tool was blasting, it took a while to explain the situation. You’ve gotten people paranoid, Maynard.

From Övünç Dan’s point of view:

GMM first day impressions

GMM first day gig photos

I read that metal has become more and more extreme, therefore the definition has changed and some bands that used to be defined as metal have been relegated and Tool is one of them. I couldn’t agree after watching this concert. Tool doesn’t have a blast beat but this darkness is still too much for a normie.

June 21st – Friday

Because of the bad weather last night, we couldn’t go to the party tent, we rolled into our own tents and fell asleep. The lightning and thunder at night made me sleep as deeply as a bear in hibernation. But when I poked my head out of the tent in the morning, I was annoyed when the same lightning and thunder said good morning to me.

To cope with this rainfall, GMM is pouring hay on the festival grounds, which has turned into a muddy swamp. Hay, I mean normal dry yellow straws. But there is a strong smell. Since I have no experience in the countryside, I couldn’t figure out whether this smell was coming from the hay, whether there was animal faeces in the mud, or whether it was raining acid. I was generally trying to move forward by stepping on the dry grass and trying not to get the source of this smell on me. However, the festival-goers were going in a different direction. According to my observations, this damnable joke started years ago in Wacken: Jumping into the mud on your belly. Then wallowing in the mud. I’ll never understand what’s so funny about drenching yourself in mud up to your arse crack. Living in this rainy climate, maybe people have learnt to be happy with what they have.

We stopped by the press room for a powerbank and camera battery charge. As we exited, there was a 10 kilometer queue in front of the autograph booth on the right. We suddenly came eye to eye with the Electric Callboy guys! I was incredibly excited, they were one of the most important bands of the festival for all three of us. We didn’t get in the autograph queue because we didn’t have anything to get signed. Instead we leaned against the bars in front of the band and looked directly at each of their faces. I admit it was absolute mad person behaviour but I’m sorry, that’s what being a fan is. It nullifies the social contract. The guys were super friendly. Despite signing autographs for hours, the queue was never exhausted. When it was time to leave, they apologised many times to the fans who were still waiting in line. They blew kisses for minutes before leaving.

I never miss power metal concerts at festivals. Therefore, it was essential for us to watch Hammerfall. Since the concert slot was early, the band was having the most productive hours. Joacim Cans was super fit and cheerful as always. He made the crowd laugh a lot with his conversations between songs. Even at the end of the concert, just before Hearts on Fire played, he said ‘We have four minutes left. I can either play one more song, or I can make jokes for four minutes, which do you prefer?’ he asked. Seriously, I would have been equally happy with both.

Fear Factory started on the next stage. Even though I turned my nose up at FF without Burton, I was secretly excited before the festival. I was so happy with the setlist that I was ready to dive into the mechanised dystopia of FF even in daylight. But I’m sorry to report that this is no longer possible. Because the ‘new kid’ Milo Silvestro is not happening, my friends. It doesn’t work; it doesn’t fit the songs, the stage, the band. FF is a very specific band, the inventor of its own sound.  Just about any random person can not replace Burton. We needed a Terminator, model T-1000 or higher. Whereas Milo is a kitten with dyed fur and a piercings. As a result, the gap between what I was supposed to watch and what I was watching stung my ears so much that I couldn’t complete the concert.

I was going to see Avantasia for the 100^th time, I sacrificed Nile, whom I had never seen before and knew that the concert set would be fatal. I lied to myself that I would see them at Hellfest. Karl Sanders would get sick after the Graspop concert and Nile would unfortunately play Hellfest without Karl. Damn stupid of me. As for Avantasia: The Avantasia stage is more like a horror musical than a metal concert. (Tobias even mocked himself by saying ‘Now it’s time for the knock-off Meat Loaf’ before announcing a song). The constant guest vocalists on this fancy stage makes the concert extra dynamic and colourful. Kamelot frontman Tommy Karevik was the guest who came in and out of the gothic / semi-symphonic power show and impressed me the most. While I was laughing with the kids about his angular beard shave, I secretly took notes: Check out Kamelot.

Here came the peak moment of the festival, the Electric Callboy hour! I swear if you don’t listen to this band, you are missing a lot, guys. I praised them at length in last year’s Hellfest article. It was a show that exceeded our expectations again. I think the crowd size had increased even more, looking backwards I could see people dancing to the horizon line. This concert was almost the same as last year in terms of both songs and stage show. Only Ratatata, which they released with Babymetal, was added to the list. I didn’t “love” the song per se, but the bastard was so much fun live. In the Graspop interview, Kevin and Nico were asked: ‘When did you realise that your band made it ‘big’?’ The guys are humbly chuckling, so I will be the one to tell you: Nico Sallach is the jackpot that hit the band. By the way, Sebastian ‘Sushi’ Biesler, who left the band in 2019, later founded Ghostkid. We will host Ghostkid in İstanbul on the 14^th of September 2024, and I will be there.

The next band was Turnstile, which has become the biggest mystery of the last three years for me. I heard their name for the first time with the album Glow On, which turned into such a giant deal. This album had music lovers in the palm of its hand as soon as it came out, the hype is still going on. I was the only one who couldn’t grasp the appeal. I thought “I’ll see them live now and finally the penny will drop”. Since Ersay had already said ‘Turnstile’ fifty times since we set foot here, I felt like I had no other choice. The concert started and after a while I started to get confused. I couldn’t understand where the songs ended and where they started. It was as if my white-collar friend downloaded Reaper on his laptop, tinkered with the programme a bit and made me listen to the unfinished projects, asking me ‘how are my songs?’ I got bored. Lead singer Brendan Yates’s demented behaviour on stage and his expressionless face reminded me of Napoleon Dynamite. If it wasn’t for sweet Franz Lyons, I wouldn’t have found anything I wanted to look at. A few days after this concert, I saw a fan video on social media: James Hetfield and Rob Halford are behind the stage during a Turnstile concert, rocking out to the band together… the only thing I can say is that I am a donkey for not getting this band.

As the sun finally started to disappear behind the horizon and it was after 10pm, we took our seats for proper worship. At this point I was beyond exhausted. There’s something weird about Judas Priest. I saw the band for the first time in 2008 and after that I’ve had the chance to see them every 2-3 years. Every time I see Rob Halford, he gets younger and more vigorous. At this concert, he was already back to his 1980s self. He went on stage saying ‘Are you ready for Priest style metal?’ We are so ready! Rob’s vocal performance was so comfortable as if he was saying ‘I’ve got this’. On top of that, he entertained the audience instead of going backstage to rest between songs. He almost mocked us when he said ‘Come on, repeat after me’ and obviously we couldn’t manage the screams. I don’t want to discuss age, but what is his secret anyway? Although not as much as Firepower, I really liked Invincible Shield. The new singles melded comfortably along with the old hits. The guitar tones changed on every song matching the sound of the album they were on and this created a time travelling effect. I won’t go into Metal God’s costumes and backdrop visuals to avoid spoilers. Because while I’m writing these lines, Judas Priest hasn’t yet performed in İstanbul. But İ’ll tell you this much, the Istanbul gig will be incredible my friends!

Our mouths were left wide open, once again the Priest spell had taken effect. There was no trace of my initial exhausted state, I was as rested and ready to go as if I had slept for 9 hours. But it was obvious we wouldn’t stoop low enough to watch FFDP. Praising the performance of Priest and laughing like crazy at the Andy Sneap stories told by Övünç, we walked away to our personal pub in our tents.

GMM second day impressions

GMM second day gig photos

By Övünç Dan of course

June 22nd – Saturday

It was time for an important inspection: the showers. On this area, I must say that GMM passed with flying colors! 10 out of 10. The shower complex was located in an enclosed building. Each entrance costs 1 Skully (3.5 euros) per person. Inside there were individual shower pods. They were made of plastic, each one was quite spacious and the plumbing was similar to the plumbing in our homes. The water was warm and pressurised. It was clean and very tidy. The dressing and undressing area is communal, so if you are a shy person, it is a bit difficult. (Try to dress in the pods and everything would get wet.) When I finished and came out I was a new me, ready for the day!

When we arrived at the venue, Eddie Van Halen’s son Wolfgang’s band Mammoth was coming to the end of the WVH concert. For the longest time I’ve been turning my nose up at Wolfi’s work as nepotism, but the music I heard was a brilliant and happy hard rock. I regretted my prejudice, it would have been nice to watch.

We watched Steel Panther with their new show, I mean their new stand up routine, and we pissed our pants laughing once again. Because there is no new album yet, the songs are the same except the new single ‘Friends with Benefits’. But in a country like Belgium with a very high percentage of fluent English speakers, the Panther show rolls on deliciously since the crowd’s reaction is just right and on time. By the way, I would like to take this opportunity to send my love, respect and Oscar statuettes to the GMM camera crew and video mixing desk. Led screens are actually the 5th member of the band in Panther shows. Because even though it is the band that gives the command, the person who determines which viewers will flash what is decided by the camera selector. Both the cameramen and the video desk did a world class job. By the way, their success was widespread throughout the festival. They elevated the whole festival experience two fold since those who control the LED screens can determine the course of the concert. The subpar video director at Hellfest should take two lessons per week minimum.

Mr Bungle set with plenty of covers and guests – Wolfgang came on stage for Loss of Control and accompanied the band – was both satisfying and very entertaining. A Mike Patton style of fun, of course, calm and graceful. Patton never left the stage after the concert. Both here and at Hellfest, he always hung around backstage and watched many bands without taking his eyes off. For a while, everywhere I looked, I saw Mike Patton. In fact, I wish he wrote this article, he watched more bands than us.

Today there was a solid feast of island metalcore bands on the main stage. The first name was Sheffield’s brats While She Sleeps. WSS is one of the bands I have the chance to watch once every one or two years. I was gladly witnessing their rise step by step, their transition from rookie to pro class. The locomotive of this rise is clearly: Loz Taylor. I have yet to see him down at a show. Again, he locked all of our attention on the stage from the first note. He raised the temperature of the crowd in a very short while. As Anti-social hit, he himself dove from the stage. But there was a situation he couldn’t calculate: When the song was over, Loz was still traveling around on the crowd’s hands. Before the the next song began, he asked if they could pass him towards to the stage please. At the end of a long silent journey, he climbed back on stage saying ‘Sorry, the Sheffield bus ran late’. Then the real bomb exploded. The event that Övünç said ‘I think it may happen’, Ersay said ‘please god let it happen’ and I said ‘it’s impossible’ happened: Oli Sykes came on stage during Silence Speaks! With his hooded sweatshirt covering his face almost completely, he appeared for a moment and melted our minds. They only sang a few lines of duet but even that was enough. But for some unexplained reason the cameras did not reflect this moment on the led screens. In fact, as I heard from my friends, the cameras didn’t even show Oli in the live broadcast of the concert either. Did we dream it?

Last year we got our faces melted at the Architects concert at Hellfest. Besides they’ve been doing incredibly well on social media for a while; we’ve been raving about their Instagram posts to each other and going mad. The concert we experienced didn’t match our rabid state. I felt that Sam was a bit over all this. In general, everyone says the same things, ‘You guys are amazing, you’re the best audience, this and that’. But when the words are not really felt, everyone can realize your are just going through the motions. The sound mix was a mess anyway. There are six people on the stage, plus the keyboardist has a guitar on his neck, it’s probably hard to mix this crowd, but the sound was tiring to the ears after a while. Only when Loz Taylor came on stage during Impermanence, the world became beautiful for a moment. It’s so cute to see live how much Sam and Loz love each other. They immediately became childlike, singing a song about existential panic could not be more fun.

I had a feeling that the Limp Bizkit concert was going to be boring but I kept it to myself because Övünç and Ersay were sure that it was going to be an absolute blast. This band is weird. We watch them live on Youtube, they entertain like crazy. We watch them live on concert and it is completely different, a bit rickety. Or should I say… Limping? This time it went well, it was an interesting experience even though it was a bit wobbly. Fred Durst took the stage wearing a grey afro wig and a neon yellow security guard vest. The mood of his performance was somewhere between cool and stoned. I really wanted to see Wes Borland wearing his four-eyed look, but he chose the buffalo-teeth look he has been donning for the last few concerts. They played the classics, not the new stuff – I mean Dad Vibes. Shame. The band should get the biggest credit for their ultra-close relationships with the fans every gig. This time Fred saw a kid (I mean a really young boy of 9 years) in the crowd holding a banner and invited him on the stage. Gabriel wanted to play Faith with the band. Wes Borland gave him his guitar, adjusted the pedals and they gave Gabriel the best memory of his life.

GMM 3rd day impressions

GMM 3rd day gig photos (surprise ending)

by – who else but – Övünç Dan

We were very lucky that Bring Me The Horizon was the closing band of the night. This band has a very important place in the personal history of the three of us. In 2014, when BMTH and we were both younglings, we came to GMM and had fun at the same concert a few metres apart without knowing each other. Now, 10 years later, we were here again and we were together. The BMTH stage was shaped around the theme of Parasite Eve. Eve, who is an A.I individual and addressed us through led screens, opened and closed the concert. Artificial intelligence, dystopian future, these are my favourite concepts to immerse myself in. Especially in the middle of the night in a distant land, I immediately get in the mood. Oli’s voice has gone through hell over the years. In the concerts we watched before the pandemic, he was signalling exhaustion. The king returned with a bang as if giving us all a lesson and lit up the stage. A moment of contrast that reveals the difficulty of what he achieved happened during Antivist: He brought an audience member from the crowd on stage. He gave him the microphone to sing along with the song and said, ‘The main burden of the song is on you. I’ll be resting back there’. It was clear from the young man’s reply that this project was doomed from the start: ‘Take a rest, you deserved it.’ How generous of you sir. Dude produced a couple guttural sounds into the mike, then gleefully proceeded to butcher the beautiful song and once done, returned to the obscurity from whence he came. The confidence of some people… It’s a very exciting offer, but you have to be a real idiot to get up to attempt this.  Oli doesn’t have the fashion sense of his fellow countryman Loz. His ‘edgy’ pyjamas with ‘Chaos’ written on one sleeve and ‘Order’ on the other was an eyesore of a costume, but the concert was great in terms of sound, song selection and the way Oli carried the show. We three might have come close to crying at Sempiternal.

June 23rd -Sunday

When Extreme is mentioned, I can hear you all saying ‘More Than Words’ in unison. Even though I didn’t know the band very well, I stood up to look at Nuno Bettencourt and Gary Cherone, whose faces I knew by heart thanks to this iconic song. Both of them were still in the band, in fact, the band was together as the original line-up except for the drummer. The concert was full of conversation and emotion. Thanks to the early hour and the burning sun, we watched the veterans from the front without being too crowded.

We made a hard transition from Extreme to Malevolence. Sheffield is a fertile land. We arrived at the venue before the concert started and I was shocked. It was so crowded that the band could have been on the main stage. But it was also great to listen to the Malicious Intent album on the Jupiler Stage because this stage has always been an emotional ‘rite of passage’ where we listened to the greatest of metalcore in their rookie stages. The concert started with the opening song with the same name as the album, and the break down of ‘Unbreakable’, which came before the third minute, got me seeing red. 4-5 different circle pits formed within the crowd and they never subsided during the show. Malevolence, who has been touring for two years non-stop, has started to reap the rewards of their hard work. I’m sure they will be on the main stage in good time.

I was curious about Slaughter to Prevail, one of the bands I missed in Istanbul and swore to see at the festival, and I was a bit in between. They are a band with a lot of hype. But I find it hard to immerse myself in the music because I find Terrible Alex unattractive for some reason. Is it his moustache-less beard? Is it his rubbish explanations about his black sun tattoo? His Putin wannabe bear videos? We have to separate the art from the artist, I know. I know we can’t expect to find perfect people making perfect music. Go on, put on your mask, put on your show, entertain us Slaughter. Not as wild and fun as Malevolence, but it was a exciting ride of a show. Even though Alex warned ‘Please smash each other’s faces in a respectful manner’, the chaos at the front got so out of control at times that he stopped the music to check on people. After making sure the audience was OK, he resumed the concert. In one of them, one of the audience members was seriously injured. After the concert Alex was smiling for the cameras as he visited this audience member in the ambulance.

Both here and at Hellfest, I have witnessed many times musicians stopped the concert and checked the crowd to see if they were OK. Especially this year, this practice seems to have become routine. This makes me feel so relieved. Because besides the fact that it feels weird to interrupt a fast-paced show, musicians used to hesitate to do this because starting the song from the beginning takes away from the band’s limited time. But the mentality is changing, safety now comes before everything else. As you know, the disaster at the Astroworld Festival is still very fresh. It is pleasing that lessons have been learnt from these tragedies. I am proud that metal musicians are pioneers in establishing this understanding.

When Scorpions sold out not one but two shows in mere minutes in İstanbul, I was quite shocked. Who were buying these tickets so eagerly? When I witnessed the crowd gathered at GMM, I knelt down and apologised. You are still great Scorpions. First of all, the stage decor was an intricate structure befitting the calibre of the band. The slopes rising on both sides of the drums looked both aesthetic and created a majestic atmosphere. I was a little worried that grandpa Klaus would attempt to climb them. Except for Klaus Meine, the members of Scorpions didn’t seem to know what year it was. Each of them said ‘enough’ in their early 30’s and just stopped aging. Especially Mikkey Dee and Rudolf Schenker were in a race to see who could play their instruments more visciously. I have to penalise Rudolf one point for the car themed guitars. The Ferrari themed Flying V is somewhat ok but that Mercedes themed one made my eyes bleed. Plus, I’ve never seen an acoustic Flying V before in my life, it blew my mind. But of course Rudolf can have his guitar shaped like a Murat 131 if he wants, he’s been writing the history of the instrument for over 60 years. I could as well eat shit. The beauty of the stage, the band being in a great mood, the weather being nice, everything came together and Övünç took some amazing photos. I’m not praising him because I love him, Scorpions loved them themselves, he shared the photos on his Instagram account, if you don’t believe me, check them out:

Scorpions mentions Surge Türkiye and shares Övünç’s photos! Damn!

We were ready to consume the last of our Skullies and the last of our energy over Machine Head. Robb Flynn is a perfect frontman if he would talk a little less. However, being an American musician necessitates oversharing and a bunch of life lessons. It’s okay, I missed him terribly. An MH concert is like no other, life lessons and all. The way Robb grabbed and held the crowd from the moment he stepped on the stage, the band’s sound, the giant MH cubes fireworks and confetti, and the blazing stage show: it was a perfect concert, a perfect festival closing. While we were looking at MH with our mouths and eyes wide open, we didn’t realise that Ersay was making little noises. Suddenly he said ‘I’m a bit sick, I think I can’t make it to the end, I’ll go to the tent and rest’ and he left. I was surprised he didn’t finish the concert. He must have been feeling really bad. He had already stopped drinking beer for the last few hours, which meant that the situation was quite serious.

GMM 4th day impressions 

GMM 4th day gig photos

by Övünç Dan

I listened to the closing speech of the GMM organisers with tears in my eyes, blew them kisses, said goodbye and went back to the tent. I gave a lecture to stress everyone out about how early we had to get up in the morning and how fast we had to move. We had to travel all day and arrive in Nantes on Monday evening. Therefore, a number of trains had to be caught one after the other, the transfers could not be missed.

June 24th – Monday

When we got up in the morning, Ersay seemed a little quieter. But again he was not complaining at all. We all packed up quickly, caught the shuttle to Mol on time and arrived at the centre before due time. Just as we got to Mol, we saw a train at the station with minutes left to leave. We asked, and yes it actually was passing through the city of Herentals where we had to transfer. We started running and caught the train, but we realised with concern that the other Brussels passengers had not boarded. As soon as we were inside, the train left. When we stepped into the carriage to get settled, we realised why it was not in high demand. It was full of first grade children. All the seats were occupied by squealing, screaming babies. There was no place to sit. Because of Övünç’s Dying Fetus sweatshirt, the teachers didn’t welcome us very warmly either. The one-hour journey felt like ten hours.

Eventually we caught the trains and arrived in Nantes at night. Ersay had stayed with our dear friend Deniz from Paslanmaz Kalem who lived in Belgium. They were going to come to Hellfest together, but Ersay got so seriously ill in the following days that his arrival to Hellfest was jeopardised, scaring the hell out of all of us. As a result, he managed to make it by sacrificing the 0th day and not to miss any concert. So what did we learn? Tuna pasta should not be stored in the hot tent.