Aviv Geffen once again showed what an Israeli rock show should look like.

This is a standard that is difficult to meet

How many times have you heard "Boot Sharb", "Brit Olam" and "Ator Mitzchach" in one evening?

How many times do you go out to see Rita, Shalom Hanoch, Matti Caspi, Ravid Plotnik, Neta Barzilai, Yoni Rechter, Ariel Zilber and Sakharof on one stage?

Despite the unnecessary paperwork, the hat should be taken off in front of Aviv Geffen

Living Room Fellow

10/04/2022

Sunday, 10 April 2022, 08:58 Updated: 09:09

• Share on Facebook

• Share on WhatsApp

• Share on Twitter

• Share on Email

• Share on general

• Comments

  Comments

Aviv Geffen, Yoni Rechter, Matti Caspi (Photo: Nir Yahav)

Aviv Geffen's fifth album, "The Letter", reached gold album status a few days after it was released in mid-1996. This did not surprise anyone.

Half a year after Rabin's assassination, Geffen was the most revered singer in Israel, and certainly the most intriguing.

In an interview in those days for Eli Yitzpan's talk show, the young Geffen tried to explain the phenomenon of "Moonlight Children" and the level of admiration for him that reached its peak.

"Some people like Aviv Geffen because it's' IN, and it does me no good," Geffen clarified, "but there are kids I do reach into them really, and they identify with all the words, it just makes me cry."

The Moonlight children have matured, just like their idol, but the mutual excitement at the encounter between the hard core of the fans and their idol still exists.

This is an honest loyalty that is rare to see in our districts, and it seems that in recent years Geffen has maintained this connection no less than his musical work.

Last night Geffen celebrated the tenth time he puts on "Rock Ball", the same big annual show where he hosts famous musical guests.

To a bystander this may seem like a celebration glorifying the artist who is on stage, but precisely those who have been following this grandiose phenomenon in the last decade can see how the focus shifts from year to year from the artist to the audience.

More on Walla!

We Are We: The end of the first season of "Severance" left us breathless

To the full article

The focus shifts to the audience.

Geffen (Photo: Niv Aharonson)

At the entrance to Amphi Park in Rishon Lezion, there is a sign indicating that the place can accommodate 14,000 spectators.

If this sign is accurate, then last night there were at least 15,000 people in the place.

That's logical.

This is ultimately an annual event that manages to surpass itself every year and attracts not only heavy fans of Aviv Geffen.

It is very easy to identify who was there from the beginning and who joined because it is "IN".

When Geffen turns the microphone towards the Alps in the amphitheater in the last house of "Billion Mistakes," these answer him with the familiar words: "It's not obligatory to live it's a right to be alive," but then the crowd splits into two groups.

One group continues to sing the familiar line from the album: "In Honor of a Billion Billion Mistakes," while another group responds with a line that Geffen would have sung at shows 30 years ago: "And life is stinking."

These are the kids Geffen wrote to, these are the kids who will not forget it.

This encounter is exciting every time again.

In honor of the "prom"'s decade celebrations, Geffen decided to put more emphasis on the music than on the gimmicks around.

It was still an invested show with a big stage, an intrusive cat walk, impressive video art on huge screens and even an exciting and surprising family reunion on the stage of "disgusting" drummer Tomer Zedekiah with his brother, the legendary drummer Nir Zedekiah (probably the closest we get to seeing a member of Nesis in Israel already).

But the real story this evening was the musical display on stage.

Was hosted.

Mati Caspi (Photo: Niv Aharonson)

For three and a quarter hours, no less than 42 songs were performed on stage.

Naturally most of the songs were by Aviv Geffen, but the many guests who took the stage came armed with some of the greatest works in the Hebrew repertoire.

It was a performance by Aviv Geffen, but it had three songs by Meir Ariel, three songs by Ehud Manor and three songs by Rami Kleinstein.

The three of them, each for his own reasons, were not present this evening.

Geffen has proven (again) that his ability to build a stylist from other people's songs - and get the original artists to perform them, does not fall short of his abilities as a musician.

Geffen performed with "Gidi Gov" "Shalal Sharb", joined a partial reunion of the band "Tammuz" while Shalom Hanoch and Ariel Zilber joined him for "Walking Idle" and "End of the Orange Season", sang with Matti Caspi and Yoni Rechter "Atur Mitzchach" and " Brit Olam ", creepy with a surprising performance of Rita's" Until You Leave "and lifted the sands of Rishon Lezion into the air with a duet of the classic" Messiah "with Shalom (the real one, not the imitation of Maor Cohen).

It's just a taste of what was there.

We no longer talked about Natasha's friends, Ravid Plotnik, Neta Barzilai and those of me who were guests.

And of course Berry Sakharof who in the best tradition joined the "end of the world" at the end, this time with transformations of fire and smoke against the background of images from the war in Ukraine.

He jumped too.

Ravid Plotnik (Photo: Niv Aharonson)

But one evening one could forget about Putin and the rest of the world's troubles.

How many times has a person gone out to hear in one evening "booty booty", "brit olam" and "adorned with your forehead"?

Each of them is a worthy contender for the title of the best Israeli song of all time.

How many times does a person go out to hear the rock anthems "Messiah," "The End of the Orange Season" and also the famous scream that seals "Now Cloudy" in one evening?

It was a musical journey yes, of a musician who loves music and loves to share that love with his audience.

Not everything was perfect of course.

The sound in the amphitheater was unbalanced.

Geffen's voice, and especially the guests', was often swallowed up behind the band;

In an obscure decision, the giant screens focused almost throughout the show only on Geffen's close-ups, and so even as Matti Caspi and Yoni Rechter (whom Geffen called "God") sang from their songs, the screens still concentrated on Geffen's excited face;

It was also jarring that Matti Caspi got into Arik Einstein's big shoes in "Journey Diary" but it is clear that he did not rehearse enough of the song.

It sucks mostly because this is a perfectionist who is not pleasant to see him reading the words from a page and unable to follow the melody.

God?

Caspi (Photo: Niv Aharonson)

Geffen's list of songs received a very slight refresh, with regular anchors in the stylist like "Violence" and "Sad Song" being dropped from the list, in favor of songs like "Crying at the Tomb" and "Ilana" that may be revived thanks to the talk show "Years of the Moon".

But in the end the formula remained almost the same for every "prom".

Open loudest, slowly amplify, invite glorified guests, then "drops", hold an electronic stanza while the band thanks the audience, return to the encore, invite Berry, give head, "We are a fucking generation" and home for an hour of traffic jams.

Unless you live within walking distance of the Rishon LeZion Amphitheater, you probably won’t be able to get home before two at night.

This too has already become part of the tradition of the prom.

The evening was overshadowed by the oppressive security feeling of the recent attacks.

What's more nineties than Aviv Geffen and terrorist attacks?

Geffen informed the audience that one of the people killed in the Dizengoff attack had purchased a ticket for the show, but the terrorist disrupted the plans.

"I think Israel's victory is to continue normalcy and not let extremists influence us and our way of life, which is why tonight's performance is so important," Geffen told the audience as pictures of the murdered appeared on the screens behind him. Our place, and we will go out and spend time and sing and rejoice and be loved in the face of all these extremists. "

It was an exciting moment.

Without the slightest hint of cynicism, although a bit jarring to hear from the man who sought to lead us to peace "without race and nationality" speaks of Israel as a "place of Jews."

Which spring are you supposed to believe in?

Aviv Geffen and Rita (Photo: Niv Aharonson)

Geffen dedicated "Skin Skins" to those killed in a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv.

The hard core in the audience, the one that has been following Geffen since the nineties, knows the truth about this song.

Geffen originally lamented in the hymn about Israel as a "dark homeland," but after external pressures changed the words to "beloved homeland."

It was an ingenious commercial decision, but also the moment when something changed in his brand forever.

Something in the rage was replaced by a reserved serenity.

Much more bride, much less anger.

His loyal audience seems to have gone through the exact same process with him.

Glossy pink.

Geffen and Ella-Lee (Photo: Niv Aharonson)

Geffen will celebrate his 49th birthday next month. At the next rock ball he will already be celebrating 50. On the fans in the audience the years are much more noticeable, but Geffen would do well to continue to dilute some of the dramatic papers that become redundant over the years.

The dramatic climb on stage scaffolding, the descent to the audience, the smashing of the guitar on stage at the end - these are things that start to look pathetic from a certain age.

He should not look too far, just look at the voices of people like Gidi Gov or Shalom Hanoch who do not need a gold suit to look like Greek gods when they go on stage and just sing their songs.

Geffen should give it a try.

He has enough stage charisma to start diluting the theatricality of his performance.

The bottom line is that the hat should be taken off to Geffen, who continues to provide a cultural event on an annual basis that is becoming the standard of what an Israeli rock show should look like.

A standard that unfortunately for rock lovers in Israel, no other artist can meet.

Few performances end at one o’clock at night and the audience leaves them in a hover of high musicality, every year anew.

This is a cultural enterprise that is intensifying year by year, becoming a kind of fire baptism in the style of the Israeli "Hall of Fame of Rock'n'Roll".

Ariel Zilber (Photo: Niv Aharonson)

In small

It's no secret that Geffen's views have changed greatly in recent years.

Some will say that he is "concentrated", some that he is "sober".

Ariel Zilber referred to him two years ago in an interview with Maariv as "a convert".

This is of course his right.

There's even something beautiful about the way Geffen went from being a persona non grata in the settlements because of lines like "the religious are knocking everyone here" or "we will conquer peace and not the territories" to being a guest of honor at performances in Judea and Samaria. A human boycott. And if there was no power in Geffen's music, the settlers would have no reason to boycott him in the first place. On the other hand, with all the desire to contain this complex situation, it is still hard to believe that Aviv Geffen To the pier, chooses to share his stage with Ariel Zilber, a man who participated in, among other things, a film calling for the release of Yigal Amir.

• culture

Tags

• Aviv Gefen

• Rock prom