A Bar Story: Ooze Bar

Last night, I was at Ooze Bar, one of İzmir's most popular Rock bars. My bodyguard brother at the entrance said, "No Rooftop Entrance!" He didn't say anything and let me in.

When I stepped inside Ooze without paying an entrance fee, I found myself in a dimly lit corridor five or ten paces long, overhead lit by Edison bulbs. On the left of the corridor were the steps leading down to the "Men's Toilet", on the right were the entrance door of the ladies toilet and at the end of the corridor 6-7 steps leading to the upper floor. Yes.......Here....love at first hearing.....always ...."in these corridors" begins. You stepped into the bar, entered the corridor, saw the WCs. Maybe your toilet has come, maybe you are going to comb your hair or wash your face, but you can give up all of this at once. If the band playing upstairs is playing your favorite piece perfectly and you have heard this excellent performance while you were in the hallway, your choice is not to dive into the WC, but "Who could this solid band be?" you use the steps leading to the upper floor to take a quick step. But frankly, it wasn't like that for me that day. When I was in the hallway, all I could hear was the band's "soundcheck" squeaks and groans like "Tırrın! Mırrın! Ciralay! Turolay! Ses! Seee! Saay!" by the band on stage. Result : I dived straight into the WC!

When I finished my work in the WC, I went upstairs and found myself in a large hall. It was a hall the size of two penalty areas. The only entrance to the hall was the stairs I was climbing at that moment. Looking ahead from this entrance, you could see the stage 20 meters away. The stage was 1 meter high. There was a DJ booth behind the stage. There was a door on the right side of the DJ booth and the stage, the clothes, equipment, etc. of the bands were in the room behind this door. Right in front of the stage, at the very end, that is, when you go up the stairs, there is a bar counter at the back on your left, another bar counter on the right before you come to the stage, liquor bottles, all kinds of barrels, etc. existed. In the middle of the hall, there were 8-10 tables and about 30 chairs, on the left and right of the hall, on the top floor and on the tables and chairs. These floors were accessed from the stairs on the right and left of the stage. Upstairs seemed like the ideal place to watch people having fun downstairs when the bar was crowded.

When the band on stage started playing their first song, "my drinking glass and I" took our places at one of the front tables. The four-member band, consisting of bass, drums, guitar and vocals, were playing classical alternative tracks. They were neither very good nor very bad. As of 23.15, there were only 20 people in the 300-seat place, but whatever, the next group's fans would fill the venue and even turn it into a carnival. From what I heard, this was it. Indeed, when the clock showed 00.30, there was an apocalyptic crowd in the bar. As the stands were in the Fener-Galatasaray derby, it was the same in OOZE.

The new band on the stage knew their job well, they were performing the pieces of the bands that young people like very much, such as “Muse”, “System of a Down”, “Manga”, close to the original. Playing popular songs excited the young people who had a drink and loved ones with them, and made them sing along to the cheerful songs and dance wildly. As the minutes progressed, the thought of "I guess I'm in heaven" was getting stronger. At least that was the case in the picture.

About 60 percent of the crowd was male and 40 percent female. About 99 percent of the dancers were female and 1 percent was male. The men in Ooze preferred not to dance but rather to rock to the rhythm. Maybe for rock music, “headbang!” Except, since no proper dance figure had been invented until now, men were content to swing instead of dance. For women, figure and figure made no difference. They were hopping, jumping, spinning. The figures of their dance, whether they fit the music or not, were not important to them. The important thing was that they had friends with them and that they could smile and have fun.

I think I was the only one there, among more than 300 people, who tried to dance with figures that matched the rhythm and melody of the music, and who took dance and music seriously. For everyone there, including the band playing, music was a means to have fun and be happy. For me, it was an escape, holding on to life, forgetting loneliness. I thought so because I was the only one who got there alone. When the bar broke up, I was the only one who left the bar alone. Blessed loneliness was something that only happened to me in bars. In the morning, I would get up early again and get my job and my friends...