Amorphis, Стамбул, Турция

Огромное спасибо Дениз за то, что она поделилась с нами своими впечатлениями! Thank you, dear!

24.03.2002 ... We have been waiting for this day with a great excitement and enthusiasm with my friend Nazli. Being in love with lots of Finnish bands and their great music, Amorphis' coming to our home town Istanbul was one of the most important events of our lives those days…

The gig took place in a club named as Spica. Since Istanbul is a damn big city and there are hundreds of clubs and bars in Taksim where Spica is also in, we met early in noon and searched to find the place first. It took us about an hour to find the place even we both are natives of Istanbul * lol * When we get there, we saw that there were no fans around. We only saw some guys that were working on the stage when we get inside. But they asked us to go out and it 's not allowed for fans to come inside of the club till the gig. Sowe went somewhere to eat something and then went back there after an hour. Still there wasn't much people waiting and we stood near the entrance door and started to wait. By the time passed, it started to get crowded and the organizators told us to form a queue. Since we were one of those who were the nearest to the door, we found ourselves on the front of the queue :) We waited for about 2 hours. But it really worth for it cause we saw the Amorphis guys *g*. While we were waiting, a minibus stopped just in front of us. Its inside was not seen that's why we didn't understand what it was for at first. Then suddenly its door was being opened and Amorphis guys stepped outside one by one and passed in front of us to the club. Because we were in front of the queue, we were the closest fans to them :) I was shocked cause that was something I really didn't wait to happen at that time! There were only centimeters between me and the Amo guys! They were all veeeeery charismatic and looked nice but they didn't look at anyone and went inside directly.

After waiting for too long and started to get cold, they at last let us go inside slowly. Since we were on the front row, we were the first ones who went inside and that's why we were on the first ow just in front of Tomi and Niclas during the gig.

First a local band named Comma took place on the stage and played for about half an hour and a little bit more maybe. During their soundcheck, Pekka came to the stage and did something to the drums. While he was going backstage again, he looked at us and I waved at him and he smiled at us :)

I was getting more excited to see Amorphis minute by minute that's why I couldn't pay much attention to the local band. At last Amorphis came on stage! First song was Goddess (of the sadman). The audience went mad and everyone was jumping and pressing each other like nuts. It was very hard for a girl on the front row to stay alive lol. Crazy boys were trying to push us back and press us. But for the love of Amorphis, I fought with them andd didn't give my place to anyone. Unfortunately, at the end of the 3rd song, organizators stopped the gig and told the audience to calm down and not to jump crazely cause the stage could collapse anytime. But everyone seemed angry cause of them stopping the gig and they didn't calm down easily. That's why they made Amorphis go backstage and told us that if we don't calm down, Amorphis was not gonna continue playing the gig. They made everyone go further from the stage and after about 20 mins. Amorphis came back and continued playing. We were still on the front row but even that we were pretty far from the stage cause of the huge space between the stage and the audience that organizators made left for the stage not to collapse. But at least everyone calmed down and the rest of the gig was more enjoyable. No one was pressing each other anymore, we were relaxed and started to have more fun. Amorphis was great! They generally played from the last 2 albums and even it was obvious for them to play Alone, Goddess (of he sadman), The Way, Tuonela, Divinity, I had the time of my life during those songs.... After Pasi announced and they played the last song and went off from the stage, they came back again after a minute and played 3 more songs as expected :) The last song was Black Winter Day and everyone went mad again :)

This was Pekka's last gig with Amorphis and cause of that someone from the tour came to the stage with a little white creamed cake and throwed it to Pekka's face! Pekka and all the other Amo guys were laughing at this and he played the last part of the song with the creams on his face. It was really a very funny scene :) After the gig was over, everyone ran to the stage and tried to touch to the hands of the guys. We did the same thing too and while Tomi was touching everyone's hands with his right hand, he suddenly hold my hand with his other hand, squeezed it and didn't let go for quite a long time :) Then Niclas squeezed my hand too and Pasi only touched.

We waited for a while in the club cause we were hoping to see the guys to talk a little and getting autographs maybe. But we were made go outside and weren't let to see them.

Unfortunately we had a bad experience at the end, my friend's coat was stolen from the cloakroom and that's why we felt sad and angry and returned to our homes. (if this didn't happen we probably would wait outside more and maybe see the guys.

What I heard from a friend that was one of the organizators, was that Amorphis liked the audience actually but found playing from that far, a bit weird.

Evenally those weird things about the audience and the bad ending of the night for us, it was great to see Amorphis, they rocked on stage and play great live!

Deniz