Gripin

A flu remedy, a covers residency and a name that stuck

The band was put together in Istanbul in 1999 by the singer Birol Namoğlu, the guitarist Murat Başdoğan, the bassist Arda İnceoğlu and Evren Gülçığ, and took its name from a Turkish over-the-counter flu remedy. The early work was other people's: Britpop, American alternative rock and Turkish rock covers played around Istanbul club stages, including Bronx. Their own label dates the start of the professional career to January 2001, by which point Gülçığ had left and the drummer İlker Baliç had come in to complete the four-piece that still plays today.

That lineup has not changed since. Namoğlu, who trained as a metallurgical engineer and was born on 9 November 1978, remains the voice and the main lyricist; Başdoğan writes most of the music; İnceoğlu handles bass, keyboards and much of the arranging. Twenty-five years of the same four people is unusual for a Turkish rock band of that vintage, and it shows in how little the records argue with themselves stylistically.

Hikayeler Anlatıldı and the record that reached national radio

The first album, Hikayeler Anlatıldı, arrived in 2004 and moved them out of the club circuit. It was reissued in 2005 as Hikayeler Anlatıldı 2 through Sony Music and GRGDN, with a second disc of acoustic versions — an early sign of a band happy to re-present its own catalogue rather than rush the next one.

The self-titled second album, released on 26 February 2007 on the same imprint, is the one that changed the scale of things. Ten tracks, with guest turns from Ferman Akgül of maNga, Pamela Spence and Emre Aydın. Böyle Kahpedir Dünya went to number one on the Turkish Nielsen airplay chart and topped the MTV Türkiye Top 10; Sensiz İstanbul'a Düşmanım, the Emre Aydın duet, followed it. The band took best new group at the 34th Hürriyet Altın Kelebek awards, with further prizes that year from İstanbul FM and Dream Magazine, and they have since won at the 43rd edition of the Altın Kelebek awards and been named best group at the Kral TV music awards.

Both of those 2007 singles are still in the set nearly two decades later, and they function as the hinge of the show rather than as nostalgia parked at the end.

Four albums in thirteen years, then a long pause

What followed was a deliberately unhurried release schedule. M.S. 05.03.2010 came in 2010, Yalnızlığın Çaresini Bulmuşlar in 2012 — the album whose title track now opens most concerts — and then a five-year gap broken by the single Beni Boş Yere Yorma in 2016 and the album Nasılım Biliyor musun? in 2017.

Nasılım Biliyor musun? is, as of September 2026, still the most recent Gripin studio album: six records in thirteen years, then nine years of singles, guest spots and tribute work. In 2020 they contributed Ebruli to an Ezginin Günlüğü tribute album, a cover that has quietly become one of the most dependable moments of the live set and now sits third or fourth in the running order at most shows.

During the same stretch the touring did not slow down at all. Songkick logs 172 past Gripin shows, 44 of them in Istanbul, which is where the band's reputation actually lives — less in album cycles than in a near-permanent circuit of city halls, university festivals and open-air summer stages.

The album that keeps announcing itself: December 2024 to August 2026

2024 was the busiest release year of the band's recent history, though none of it was an album. Kimse Senin Gibi Sevmesin appeared on 12 January 2024 and Zamanın Bahçesinde on 5 April, alongside Sen Gidiyorsun with Anıl Şallıel, Panorama Harem and a remix EP, Gripin Remix 24.

Then came the first proper signal. On a winter tour booked by Bayhan Müzik through 2024 and 2025 — sold-out nights in Diyarbakır, Şanlıurfa and Mardin, with Trabzon, Mersin, the Istanbul Congress Centre, the Ankara Congresium and a Dublin date to follow — Namoğlu told audiences in December 2024 that a single was days away and an album would land in the new year. Var Bir İhtimal, written by Namoğlu with music by İnceoğlu, came out on 20 December 2024, billed as the herald of that album.

The album did not land in the new year. Instead the band went to North America between 6 and 15 March 2025, playing Washington DC, New York, Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco and Seattle, and launched the second single, Kim Tutar Beni, in the middle of the run on 28 February 2025. Aklıma Ziyan followed on 23 May 2025. The fourth, haydi kalk!, arrived on 10 August 2026 through Gripin Yapım with Avrupa Müzik, written by Başdoğan and Namoğlu and arranged by the band — an up-tempo summer track pitched explicitly at the live show. Twenty months after the first herald, the album itself still has no announced title or date.

Standing in autumn 2026

The practical effect of a nine-year album gap is that Gripin are now a touring act with a drip-feed recording habit, and the market treats them accordingly: mid-size indoor venues in the colder months, festivals and open-air terraces in summer, university shows year round.

The summer of 2026 ran through the UNIQ Open Air stage at Maslak on 18 July and a Kanyon date in Istanbul on 26 June. Before that, 30 April 2026 brought a set at Yıldız Technical University's Davutpaşa campus as part of the institution's careers fair, and 9 May 2026 two separate Istanbul shows on the same day, at Özyeğin University and at Paribu Art in Kadıköy.

The autumn dates on sale are domestic and Istanbul-weighted: Jolly Joker Ankara on 2 October 2026 at 21:00, JJ Arena in Istanbul on 23 October, and IF Performance Hall Beşiktaş on 6 November. Standing tickets run between about ₺820 and ₺1,026. No new overseas run has been announced since the March 2025 North American tour, and the band has no confirmed dates outside Turkey at present.

The set as it stands

The current show is short and front-loaded rather than paced towards a climax. At Kanyon on 26 June 2026 the band played thirteen songs between 20:00 and 21:20, opening with Yalnızlığın Çaresini Bulmuşlar and working through Belki Çok Da Şey Yapmamak Lazım, Ebruli, Böyle Kahpedir Dünya, Beş, Durma Yağmur Durma, Aşk Nereden Nereye, Muhtemel Aşk, Beni Boş Yere Yorma, Komşu Kızı and Gidenin Dostu Olmaz, then a straight cover of Queen's We Will Rock You.

The shape barely moves between venues. At PRUFEST'24 in Tuzla on 15 May 2024 they played a longer version of the same arc — 20:45 to 22:20, with Nasılım Biliyor musun?, Sensiz İstanbul'a Düşmanım and Halledemedik in the slots that Kanyon gave to the newer material. An outdoor set at İş Sanat Açıkhava on 30 May 2025 ran 19:10 to 20:35. The consistent element is that the two 2007 hits sit in the middle of the set rather than at the end, and that the newest singles are worked in one or two at a time instead of in a block.