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Hey folks, how’s life treating you? Me? It’s hot, brother, seriously hot… I mean, I was the one trash-talking Antalya, and of course I end up hitting Istanbul heat as well, right? What were we saying—ban the sun! Anyway, main topic, sorry :)

DEATH! Man, what did we just experience? No joke, two days have passed and I’m still under its spell. I can’t remember the last time I was this hyped at a concert…

First, a round of thanks. Huge thanks to Duality and Vera for organizing the show, to Alp Demirtaş for his support with photos, to the guys handling sound and lights (seriously, outstanding work fellas/lady crew), a separate thanks for Ahmethan’s entire exhaustion :) and a massive thank you to everyone involved.

Anyway, let’s rewind a bit and go from there. Like Tahir said, this was a concert I’d been waiting for months—Death to All. From the moment my dear friend Levent Vural, a genuinely great guy, said “Hüso, I’ve got bomb news for you,” I was already fired up. I started firing question after question at him: “Bro tickets, bro venue, bro how is this even real?” 😊 He didn’t even flinch.

Days passed, Hammer finally announced the tickets had arrived, and I said “grab me one immediately” 😊. Cem Kurtuluş (another close friend) also got his, and the waiting began.

Then the day finally arrived. Flights and everything were ready in the morning, and I hit the road. It was barely 6 a.m., I turn the key, heading to the airport—boom, notification. From Pegasus, and an unexpected one at that: your gate number and flight time have changed…

Before I could even say “what the hell, you’re Pegasus, get it together,” I turn the wheel and suddenly—bam—a garbage truck appears right in front of me. Twenty minutes to gate closure, where did you come from, man… A bit of horn-honking, a bit of arm-waving, things got heated, but eventually the guy moved. Then full throttle to the airport.

Public service announcement: speed is never a good thing!

Parked the car somewhere decent and ran inside. Luckily I hadn’t brought anything with me. Since the security guys kinda knew me, they let me through quickly shouting “run, run,” but!

But the moment I heard “Dear Hüso; this is your final call,” I have no idea how I made it to the gate while swearing under my breath and practically running like my feet were kicking my own ass. As I got closer, I shouted from a distance to the poor girl, and she replied “it’s okay, I’m waiting” — honestly, a beautiful gesture, respect to her 😊

We boarded the plane out of breath, sweat pouring down like a fountain… as if we hadn’t brought anything with us… anyway, let’s not get gross, moving on 😊

Since I was coming from Antalya, accommodation can sometimes be tricky on concert days. Luckily, Amir said “come on, you can stay at my place,” which made things much easier.

But staying at Amir’s obviously comes with a price 😊. He had started working at Atlantis Music, so he was also handling opening and closing the shop. We planned to meet around 9, have breakfast, and head to the store.

But what happened? Amir also learned the hard way that you don’t go anywhere tied to Hüso’s rope 😊. I called my friend Egemen from Efes stands, who also works at Sabiha, just to check if he was on shift 😊. Of course he said “I’m coming,” and poor Amir ended up taking the hit… I delayed things by 2 hours. Why? Because of course Efes came into the conversation and we couldn’t wrap it up… I checked the time—almost 11 :D

After saying goodbye to Egemen, I jumped on the metro and headed to Akmar. From there straight to Atlantis, catching up properly. I got a bit of a scolding, deservedly, but still—he even bought me a sandwich 😊. After that, we got into shop mode.

Hüso doesn’t just stand still there either—he went from shop to shop like it was his own kingdom. At one point, phone calls were made to everyone who knows Tünay Akdeniz, and when I ran into Yücel abi (man, I missed him), we ended up talking about everything from history to football to politics.

Thanks to Atlantis, we met a lot of great people from Samsun and İzmir. All of them were in town for the concert. And of course, anyone coming from out of city must pass through Akmar—that’s just how metalheads are 😊

Time somehow passed and when concert time came, Tahir picked us up and we headed to IF. We did the classic metal show ritual: gate-side talk, gossip, new info, catching up with friends—and once we saw the queue forming, we slipped right into it from the side 😊

The show started with a slight delay, which honestly was no problem at all… I could probably fill fifty pages just on this concert. Chuck was with us. GENE did his beastly thing, dream-like stage presence and all that—I could go on forever. Max thankfully didn’t make us feel Chuck’s absence at all.

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Steve DiGiorgio took over all vocal duties and crowd interaction. Watching a monstrous drummer like Gene in real life, being in the same space—absolutely incredible. The guy plays with such effortless coolness he never breaks character.

There was even this moment—I don’t remember which song—but while Max, Steve and Bobby were going off, he dropped one stick from his left hand, kept playing with the other, and was messing with spare sticks with his other hand 😊 At one point he was literally spraying the crowd like a machine gun with drumsticks and “mowing us down” with his feet :).

I don’t remember IF ever being this packed. The crowd was massive. I don’t know the exact number, but hearing around a thousand people chant along to Zombie Ritual, The Philosopher, Zero Tolerance… priceless.

If Chuck Schuldiner had been there watching from a corner of the stage, seeing both the crowd and Max Phelps and the band, he would’ve been genuinely proud.

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The place was so suffocatingly packed that everyone I touched was drenched. I’m interpreting that as “everyone was crying,” honestly. We witnessed a concert worth crying over. I still haven’t recovered from it.

Symbolic turns 30, Spiritual Healing turns 35. And we heard these albums played start to finish by the people who actually created them. I still can’t believe it.

The moshing crowd, people getting tricked at one point (funny moment though :)), drinks flying in the air… I can’t even describe it.

BUT the real crown goes to the sound engineer. Crystal-clear sound, I couldn’t believe it. They did an incredible job—possibly the best sound in IF history.

Death to All’s lineup had an average age of 50+, Max excluded, but what a performance. Nearly two hours of setlist, no drop in energy, just pure fire.

They cut the last three songs of Spiritual Healing and instead added Lack of Comprehension, The Philosopher, and Zombie Ritual. For the encore they closed with Spirit Crusher and Pull the Plug.

I just couldn’t get enough of this concert :(

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When it ended, everyone leaving the venue had the same smile—that “what the hell was that?” grin. Absolutely amazing.

Time to split came, and thanks to Tahir, Amir dropped us off home. Next day we opened the shop again, turned on Atlantis’ lights, and even during the first sale we were still talking about the concert.

At 16:00 it was time to leave. After some good shopping and a final goodbye to Atlantis, I headed to the airport.

Seeing young guys in Death to All shirts there made my chest swell with pride. Meeting a teacher from Samsun and doing a quick post-concert breakdown and future show talk was great. See you at Bosphorus, brother :)

And finally, home. I was exhausted, my whole body aching—but it was worth it.

Let me leave one last note. Hug your family tightly, people. Never leave behind sorrow. Seeing my mother like that again made my heart feel like it was going to explode.

Yeah, a bittersweet ending—but people need to take time for themselves too. Still, no matter what, hold your family close.

That’s it from me. I was dead on my feet after IF—I’m going to go find my ass. See you. Stay safe.


HÜS