Regularly referred to as Turkey's Woodstock, the Zeytinli Rock Festival has been showcasing this country's top rock, alternative and metal music groups since its founding in 2010. Every end of summer since then, the Dalyan coast of Balıkesir's Zeytinli district is transformed into a festival wonderland with dozens of much-loved performers taking the stage all day and nearly all night while fans camp out and enjoy the sea and sand.It's as if the beach in Zeytinli was designed for this mega annual concert series. Two giant stages are set up, there's a food court area and an outdoor court for games while the expansive fine sand gives way to a calm and serene sea making for the perfect festival environment, which Turkey's music-lovers have certainly discovered. This year there was nearly 150,000 concert-goers, a whopping 50 percent increase from last year's 100,000 attendees and considering many people just assumed the event was cancelled, these figures could have soared even higher, which just goes to show that the spirit of rock and roll in Turkey is not just alive but is thriving.Şebnem FerahWhat makes this festival special is that it is pretty much exclusively a showcasing of Turkish musicians from the most popular rock, alternative and metal performers to newer up-and-coming bands. There is no other concert series that has so many heavy-hitters taking the same stage and many on the same night. Throughout this five-day event, which began on Wednesday, Aug. 24, 15 musical groups have been performing concerts each night, each with top-notch performances one after the other.The biggest surprise of this year's festival line-up was the inclusion of Selda Bağcan, a female folk artist who at nearly 70 years of age commanded the stage and was one of the most sought after performances of the festival. Known for her Turkish folk music renditions and foray into psychedelic rock, Selda, as she is lovingly referred to by her fans, is experiencing an international revival and her music has been sampled by the likes of Mos Def and Dr. Dre and she has even headlined European festivals.Cahit BerkayEach night, there were multiple groups that could have been headliners. On the first night, Selda followed performances by Bülent Ortaçgil, Moğollar and Kurtalan Express, all legends in their own right, with Büyük Ev Ablukada, one of Turkey's newer popular groups a close contender. Duman followed Teoman and Manga on the second night. The third night of the festival had the likes of Athena, who played for a solid three hours into the wee hours of the night, taking the stage after vocal prodigy Cem Adrian and Turkey's psychedelic representatives Baba Zula. Şebnem Ferah, Mor ve Ötesi, Model and Umut Kuzey took the stage on the fourth night and the festival closed out with Pentagram, Hayko Cepkin and Kurban to name just a few of the stellar performances that took place this weekend.Both Duman and Athena truly gave their all, with the latter bringing Şebnem Ferah on stage and she reciprocated the gesture when she performed, giving fans the unique opportunity to listen to their rock goddess perform with two of the frontliners of Turkey's biggest ska punk band Athena. I watched the brothers Gökhan and Hakan, which make up half of the group Athena prepare in just 10 minutes for the rendition of the Gallipoli folk song Aynalı Çarşı they played on stage with Şebnem Ferah. Residing in Çanakkale myself, I couldn't help but feel a sense of pride at how quickly they could come up with such an impressive rendition and how practically everyone in the crowd new the lyrics to this ballad For Çanakkale by heart. Şebnem Ferah also brought Harun Tekin from Mor ve Ötesi and Model vocalist Fatma Turgut onstage for duet performances and on the following night she also joined Pentagram onstage for a duet of their version of the Aşık Veysel classic Uzun İnce Bir Yoldayım, an impressive performance, which also closed out the five-day concert series.Turkey's rock god is a goddess!From my experience in front and behind the stage it was well-obvious that among the long lineup of Turkey's musical heavy hitters the true star of the show was the petite, quirky yet beautiful Şebnem Ferah. Wherever she walked, security followed. Her performance was the most packed and the most visited by other famous singers and she stayed on until the final day even taking part in the after party that was led by DJ Nikki Wild, "Turkey's glam rock representative" as Hayko tells me. It gave me pleasure to see just how revered a musician Turkey's version of Bjork really is. There was no doubt she was the queen to no one's king in this event and she is certainly well-deserving of the honor.Born in 1972 to ethnic Turkish immigrant parents from what is now Macedonia, Şebnem Ferah began her career as the lead vocalist of the all-female hard rock band Volvox, whose first Istanbul concert was supporting the heavy metal band Pentagram back in 1991. A quarter of a century later and we still get to see them perform together. While Pentagram are Turkey's resident heavy metal group having been active on the scene for three decades now, their performance was outshone by Hayko Cepkin, who could do that to anyone as this vocalist whose musical genres range from heavy metal, Anatolian rock to industrial and post-hardcore was certainly born to perform. This Turkish musician of Armenian descent has not only forged his own style of music and stage performance, but he has also redefined the concept of beauty. With a Mohawk and a lazy eye and impressive body art, Hayko is his very own epitome of beauty, and having seen him up close and personal I can truly vouch that he is one beautiful man.Hayko CepkinAnother beautiful man in the more classic sense is Umut Kuzey, a Turkish rocker from Adana who just happens to be the very figure behind the formation and fruition of this very special festival. He also organizes the annual Kuşadası Gençlik Festival, the second best event contender for Turkish rock after the Zeytinli Festival; however this year it was scheduled for mid-July and was as a result affected by the very unfortunate turn of events. "I had to spend two weeks keep trying to convince everyone that this festival should go on," he tells me emphasizing that continuing to play music and for fans to be able to listen to music is the best thing they can do right now. And do it he did yet you would never know this modest and unassuming musician, despite his Dionysian-like presence, who happened to play earlier in the evening on Saturday, is the key figure behind the entire festival and bringing all of these top-notch Turkish performers together with a strong vibe of solidarity onstage and among the crowds showing that rock and roll in Turkey is here to stay.Umut Kuzey