No doubt, Pink Martini is one of the most popular bands among Turkish audience. Most of us know the melody of ” Je ne veux pas travailler! Je ne veux pas dejeuner! Je veux seulement oublier et puis je fume”, it had been decorating İstiklal Avenue’s air for a long time when I was in highschool…Then “Hang on little Tomato” got released, and Lilly started airing on the same avenue, accompanied by “Donde estas Yolanda?”… All these songs take me back to highschool time which gives nostalgia because I really miss the times of İstiklal between 2000-2007, where there were trees, centennial shops, old patisseries and of course good music. Pink Martini has been to Turkey several times ( Yesterday the band’s co-lead singer Storm Large said twenty, I am not sure though. I still have this twenty-twelve confusion sometimes :P ).
What a pity it was my first time to see them. As the lead vocal of the band ” China Forbes” underwent a vocal chord surgery, she was at first temporary replaced by Storm Large, who accompanied the band in the world tour and then became a co-lead singer, I could watch her performance instead of China. She introduced herself at the beginning “Benim adım Storm Large yani ‘Büyük Fırtına’. Ama benden korkmayın, size zarar vermem” and yes she said that in Turkish, she said yes my name is large storm but don’t be afraid, I won’t hurt you. :) One could see her self-confidence immediately on stage and those words just confirmed that. ( I saw her instagram nick: stormof69, I said to myself, Wow this woman is even more confident than I expected, but she made a double-entendre of course, she was born in 1969. One cannot believe she is 44, she appears to be in her early 30s)
The concert was full of surprises. They invited the audience twice to the stage to come and dance with them. It was an ultimate “user-experience”. I felt very attached to the atmosphere and it was one of my life’s great moments. And at the final they made us a surprise and a big pile of balloons that was hanging from top got released! In a few seconds everywhere was surrounded with colourful balloons and everybody started to play with them.
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| How audience looked from stage |
| On stage with Pink Martini |
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| Balloon Surprise! |
| The balloons had their agency’s name “Pasión Turca” (my favourite!) and band’s name with their new album “Get Happy”. |
They really know how to “get us happy” I should say!
P.S: The concert was a birthday present to dear Mısra, I hope she enjoyed it as much as I did :)
