Monolith Cocktail Blog

LIVE REVIEW
Words: Ayfer Simms

Tinariwen live Zourlo, Istanbul 2017

We sit, and wait. The lights are on, the stage is empty, there’s a glow but we are unsure where it comes from. The room, a sort of Amphitheatre dressed in red velvety fabric has the allure of a drama play setting, it is dressed for it, whereas it has witnessed some grandiose, yet intimate moments I shan’t say.

The public is young and energetic; this public can appreciate what is to come. The public in Turkey is not eclectic. You can cut it with a sharp knife, clean carving; you will most definitely not see any lines get blurry in the cultural arena. This crowd is educated, have a bit of money, and is relentless, perhaps in the light of the newish developments that have been occurring: the rise of power all trapped in one single man. Read between the lines, that is how much we can give without watching over our shoulder these days.

This public is thirsty for this music, rather than an easy escape, it is a sort of shamanistic experience that they/we call for. As if the need for leaving our body would somehow liberate us for a moment, of the unspoken troubled iron fist that tightens its grip on this particular youth- and everyone else if they care to notice- in this modern area of Istanbul, a bastion in the fight against bigotry and subjection. We wonder then how being seated will work for us, nailed to our chair while our chests are already glowing in the midst of the room, as one great energy swirling around, ready to combust. Our bodies will enter a weirdly autistic convulsion, and our legs locked and handcuffed will soon frantically shake, like stoners from the 60s, our chains eager to break free will chime like those of the slaves on a field. We smile. We lose our breath when they finally appear on stage, one by one with a cool sobriety.

They take us higher than we’d imagine, with their ever so cool blues and mystical presence. There they are, welcomed by the crowd as if they carried under their shiny djellabas the secrets of freedom. Trance, entrance, and slowly the rhythms pick up and, some break free in the crowd and out of the cuckoo nest gather in the empty spaces between seats and vales, march in tremor, taken by seizures of pleasure, and surf the notes to outburst in front of the blue lights, summed by the members of the band. Tinariwen didn’t bring the desert to Istanbul, as enticing and magical that may be, they brought an air of rebellious fever, quenching the thirst for freedom, for all the while that they played we felt hope, we lost fear, and we felt igniting in our core, the courage to fight back. We left the venue filled with a reinforced desire to defeat our own local demons, if not with our fists, at least with our art. And as long as these bands don’t abandon us, we will be alright.



Ayfer Simms is a Franco-Turkish author, Agatha Christie obsessive, martial arts practitioner and contributor to the Monolith Cocktail who lives in the ancestral family home of Üsküdar-old Scrutari in Istanbul, Turkey with her husband and daughter. Ayfer currently works for the Institute Francais in Istanbul; a role that has recently involved her organising musical soirees and helping to bring Mali’s desert blues doyans Tinariwen to Turkey. Ayfer is just putting the finishing touches to her debut novel.