İstanbul rock festivals: Continuation of a philosophy or merely commercial activity?

Entering a period of resurgence in the 1980s, rock festivals have turned out to be largely commercial events sponsored by major corporations. At the time, these mostly turned into large-scale concerts combined with charity goals. Moreover, the genre of the music is not the same as the one that started the tradition 40 years ago; now, besides rock music, other genres as diverse as electronic, dance and even pop music are played at large open-air festivals.

The situation is reflected in the words of Latin rock guitarist Carlos Santana, who said he was “still a hippy,” referring to 1969's Woodstock Festival, which made Santana the living legend he is, when he came to İstanbul earlier this month for a concert at Kuruçeşme Arena. One no longer needs to live like hippies did in the '60s to call oneself “a hippy,” but rather adopt a hippy's outlook on life, that is, “questioning the religious or political authority,” Santana had said then. “A hippy is not a person who has long hair, who does not wash. … I have always been a hippy, but I have certain standards. Before I leave this world I want it to become a world that thinks differently; a place where men and women are equal. … The hippy lifestyle is not a Hollywood movie of sorts, it is a reality.” That is the case for Santana, but what about today's rockers and rock festivals, and, most importantly, the philosophy behind them?

Bearing these questions in mind, İstanbul is home to not one but two rock festivals simultaneously this weekend. The Sixth Rock'n Coke Festival is “rocking” the İstanbul Park race track area the whole weekend, while the rather new Unirock Festival is currently unrolling its second edition at Maçka Küçükçiftlik Park. Both festivals are wrapping up tonight after offering live gigs by world-famous acts.

Rock'n Coke was expecting around 40,000 festival goers this year to watch the performances of more than 300 musicians. As one of the biggest open-air events in Turkey, Rock'n Coke this year hosts important groups of the contemporary rock scene such as Linkin Park, Nine Inch Nails and The Prodigy besides Kaiser Chiefs, Jane's Addiction, Santigold, Juliette Lewis, Howling Bells, Janelle Monae, D2, Cold War Kids, Razorlight and leading Turkish groups and musicians such as Duman, Manga, Hayko Cepkin, Emre Aydın and Aylin Aslım. The festival also has a camping area for 15,000.

Replica of urban lives accompanied by rock music

Dilge Berktaş, director of brand advertisement and communications at Coca-Cola Turkey, said during a news conference on the eve of the festival that every detail was evaluated in order to make festival-goers feel comfortable -- which sounds a little odd since “comfort” was probably the last thing on fest-goers' minds in the '60s. Berktaş indicated that according to a survey the most common area of interest shared by 94 percent of youth was music and that Rock'n Coke was a significant opportunity for them to discover their music style. Taking this into consideration, the two festivals can be an important chance to observe what rock music means to festival-goers in the present day, compared to three or four decades ago. Constructed over one-and-a-half months, the Rock'n Coke festival area contains entertainment and shopping centers, food shops, parking lots, a mobile hospital, a post office, an amusement park and an Internet café -- which basically shows that the festival, instead of a manifestation of opposition, is a small-scale replica of our daily urban lives accompanied by 57 hours of live rock music.

However, the festival still includes a social message. Since 2005, Rock'n Coke has been hosting a youth program called “Hayata Artı” (Life +), a joint initiative by Coca-Cola Turkey and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) aimed at encouraging young people to come up with projects that offer solutions to problems common to their regions, such as environmental issues.

The Unirock Open-air Festival, on the other hand, features appearances by various heavy metal acts, appealing to a rather more “hardcore” fan base than Rock'n Coke. Unirock is quite assertive: with the participation of heavy metal bands of worldwide fame such as Testament, Opeth, Dark Tranquility and Orphaned Land, the festival managed to lure some 10,000 fest-goers in its first edition in 2008. Qualified as the “best metal music festival of all times in Turkey” by some of its participants, Unirock also hosts significant groups of metal music this weekend such as Arch Enemy, Kreator, Amon Amarth, Paradise Lost, Rotting-Christ and Firewind. This year's festival  boasts no camping area, but its lineup is strong enough to make the festival one of the major open-air music events in Turkey.

As to where these festivals stand on the global stage, Berktaş answers in the press conference that Rock'n Coke is one of the leading festivals in the world. This needs to be confirmed, though. Definitely both festivals are improving and have a bigger influence every year, but when compared with international festivals like Glastonbury, Eurockéennes de Belfort or Sonar, which attract around 70,000 to 100,000 revelers annually, Rock'n Coke is still listed as one of the small-size festivals.

What both festivals need is international participation, not only in terms of musicians but also in terms of audience, which is the case in almost all major rock festivals of the world. Whether or not these festivals put forth or represent a certain philosophy or carry a spirit like their predecessors is a question that remains to be answered, but there seems to be no sense in searching for nostalgia since nowadays there remains hardly anything to remind of those times -- particularly as today's rock music differs in many ways from the music of the '60s.