Nostalgia Sunday – Al Bano Carrisi
Filed under: Art, Entertainment, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, Music, News, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture, Profiles
Israeli culture is made up of subcultures that coexist but are not necessarily aware of one another. For example: this past weekend, a very famous singer packed not one but two auditoriums with adoring fans and the story went completely unreported by the mainstream Israeli press, Hebrew and English alike.
No matter. For the record, Al Bano Carrisi was in Israel and if the name doesn’t ring a bell, then you either aren’t 1. a survivor of the Europop Seventies, 2. Italian, or 3. Russian.
But if you are one of the aforementioned three, then the name Al Bano elicits cries of joy and sighs of nostalgia.
Without going into the details of how it happened, last night I found myself a member of Al Bano’s backstage entourage at the concert in Tel Aviv’s Mann Auditorium. The night before, he had packed ‘em in at the Haifa Auditorium. This was not his first trip to Israel. He’s toured here before and — due to popular demand — will likely be here again.
This is why: Russians love Al Bano’s singing and Al Bano loves singing. In the Sixties and Seventies, Al Bano was a crowd-pleasing singer of sentimental songs, so famous in his home country that he opened for the Rolling Stones on their 1967 Italian tour. He participated in the San Remo Music Festival and Eurovision Song Contest and together with wife Romina Powell (daugher of actor Tyrone Powell) won both competitions in the Eighties. In the Nineties he turned to opera and even stood in for Luciano Pavarotti, singing alongside Plácido Domingo and José Carreras in their Three Tenors performance.
He also sued Michael Jackson for plagiarism. He didn’t win but still, how great is that? You can read about that and more about his storied career here.
Somehow during his career, Al Bano’s music managed to slip through a chink in the Iron Curtain. And so, although today he lives the life of a gentleman farmer and vintner, a few times a year Al Bano ventures out on tour, performing in countries with large Russian emigre populations who are wild for Al Bano.
Yesterday’s audience turned out in all their lacquered, manicured, hair-sprayed, sequined and fur-trimmed finery (PETA has no place at a Russian event). The majority were middle aged and up but that doesn’t mean they were tame. Not by a long shot. Between almost every song, women climbed, bounded or hobbled onto the stage with bouquets for their idol, as is the Russian tradition. And once on stage, they serenaded him, got his autograph and even had the backup singers take their picture.
Al Bano reveled in every moment he had with his audience — he loves connecting with the crowd by talking directly to them — and they responded with waves of affection. He opened with a few transliterated words in Hebrew and Russian. Before singing the song “Nostalgia” he explained that he’d had a long-standing songwriting collaboration with journalist and lyricist Willy Molcho, a Jew whose daughter now lives in Israel. And for his third ovation — “Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves” from Verdi’s Nabucco — he dedicated it to the audience. They wept.
And that’s the thing about seeing a master showman with four-and-a-half decades of performing experience, a true creature of the stage — his music might not be to my taste but just watching him command the crowd was an unforgettable experience.
Standing backstage after the show, it turned out that in addition to the Russian-Israeli majority, (and the Italian-Israeli minority) there were also members of another subculture present: sabra Israeli doctors who had studied medicine in Italy and — as one M.D. put it to us — spent their nights burning the midnight oil with Al Bano’s music on the radio, playing in the background.
The good doctors wanted express their gratitude by taking him out to dinner. He wasn’t able to but clearly, given the love his Israeli fans have him, Al Bano Carrisi could dine out every night this week in Tel Aviv if he wanted to.
Here’s Al Bano and Romina Powell singing their 1981 hit Felicita.
Music under the headlines
Filed under: A New Reality, Entertainment, General, Israeliness, Life, Music, Politics, Pop Culture
The big headlines arise when a Madonna or Elton John come to Israel, or when an Elvis Costello or Pixies cancel coming to Israel.
But in between those highs and lows, there are dozens of class acts who land on our shores during European tours, providing a much-needed niche for the more discriminate adult music fans who either can’t afford to, or don’t enjoy standing with 50,000 other people in a park or stadium looking at a video screen.
Case in point was last night, when Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan unassumedly breezed into Tel Aviv for a show at The Barby Club. Hardly household names, to be sure, but then again, anyone with a knowledge of British and American indie rock will recognize the duo as one time members in good standing of Belle and Sebastian and The Screaming Trees, respectively.
Together, they’ve been making eerily enchanting music together for a few years, and have established a cult following around the world, including Israel. While the Barby doesn’t hold anywhere near 50,000 (or even 1,000), it barely provided enough space for the local fans of the duo, as shown by this clip.
Away from the headlines about boycotts and superstars, there are talented musicians coming here regularly, and as you can see, making some beautiful music.
The 12th day of Hanukka
Filed under: A New Reality, education, Entertainment, General, Holidays, Israeliness, Life, Music, Pop Culture, Religion
I know, Hanukka is over, but here’s one more reminder of what fun it’s supposed to be.
A group of students who are studying in Israel at the Ein Prat Israel Academy for Leadership in Kfar Adumim decided to create their own Hanukka spiel – and recorded a video of the Black Eyed Peas song “I’ve Got a Feeling,” with a few appropriate changes for the Festival of Lights.
The clip by the American students, dubbed the Ein Prat Fountainheads, hasn’t received the same attention as the similar YouTube Hanukka tribute by the Maccabeats, the Yeshiva U a capella group, but it’s not bad.
“We wanted to come together to do a little project for Hanukka as a way of getting together to have fun, and as a way of brightening up the holiday for everybody else by putting it on the Web,” student leader Aaron Rotenberg told The Jerusalem Post.
The Ein Prat Academy where Rotenberg studies claims on its Web page to seek students who “aspire to become people who seek excellence in all aspects of their life – body, mind and soul. These young men and women are looking to develop into citizens who strive for a better Israeli society, a more advanced Jewish world, and a richer education for themselves and for others.”
Their Hanukka video isn’t a bad start.
Party like it’s 1979 (and I’m still 19)
Madboojah Project
There’s only one thing more uncomfortable than being the only 50-year-old in a room full of twenty-something college students at a raucous dance party. That’s going with your 17-year-old daughter.
I have been wanting to see an Israeli band called The Madboojah Project for a year now, since I missed their concert last Purim. The group performs an eclectic mix of Celtic, Irish, folk and trance music with bagpipe, flamenco and belly dancers to boot. They’ve just released a new CD (their second) and began a new tour in October.
So when I read on a street poster that Madboojah Project would be playing a concert last week, along with two other World Music bands I dig – Balkan Beat Box and Amir Yakobi’s Tribal Dance – I quickly snapped up two tickets for my wife Jody and me.
But come the night of the performance, Jody wasn’t feeling well. I called up my Israelity colleague David Brinn who’s usually up for a musical experiment, but he was exhausted after a hard week.
That’s when I thought of my teenage daughter. She loves music and dancing. And it could be a nice father-daughter night out.
I should have known when we got to the performance space – a side annex to Jerusalem’s Crown Plaza Hotel – that this might not exactly be my crowd. My peers are not particularly tattooed, pierced, dreadlocked or scantily dressed (we middle-agers rarely don mini-skirts). Another clue: when we asked where the concert was, the guard responded, “Oh you mean the party.”
But we had made the journey out already, and the tickets were already paid for, so there was no turning back.
We arrived at 9:30 AM – much too early for the fashionably tardy college set. We milled around for about an hour with my daughter becoming increasingly uncomfortable. Here was a room full of young people and she was hanging out with her…father. Her old father. She tried to joke, but it was clearly a strain.
I tried to make the best of it. “Once the music starts, you’ll love it,” I said. “Or you could stand on the other side of the room and pretend you don’t know me.” I also suggested that no one would actually know I was her dad; they’d probably think that – with my buffed body (not) – I was a plainclothes security person.
But it was too much. My daughter, apologizing profusely, left to catch a cab home, leaving me alone with the crowd.
The first band, Tribal Dance, came on an hour later. They were very good, but without a dance partner, it was awkward. I hung out in the back inhaling far too much second hand smoke (the Israeli crowd disregarding en masse the law).
As midnight passed, I thought to ask the guard at the exit what time he thought Madboojah Project would go on. He didn’t know. “How long do you think the party will last?” I asked. “Until at least 4:00, maybe 5:00,” he replied. AM.
That was beyond even my pain tolerance. I made a quick exit and headed out into the chilly Jerusalem air, feeling doubly defeated. I had missed my Madboojah fix a second time. And I had come to the realization that, despite feeling young at heart and still hip, I was, alas (and as my daughter will readily profess), no longer cool. Middle age and Moodbajah just don’t mix.
Jewish moshing at Linkin Park concert
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Life, Music, Pop Culture
Some of the crowd at the front of the stage.
As parents sat on the sloped hill on the peripherary of the amphitheater, the wide area in front of the stage was where most of the 15,000-strong crowd crammed and jostled, turning it into a hormone-fueled mosh pit.
According to first-hand accounts, there wasn’t even room to raise their hands down in front, and even before the show started, promoter Shuki Weiss emerged from the shadows and took center stage, and said something like:
“You have to stop all the pushing and shoving, or the security people are going to come and remove you. And then you’ll miss the show, you don’t want that, do you?”
And when that didn’t seem to work, he took out his secret weapon, saying, “This isn’t the kind of behavior we expect from you,” echoing the plaintive wail of Jewish parents throughout the ages.
I’m not sure if that did the trick, but the show went on as scheduled, with the audience swaying like a sea of humanity, raised fists thrust in the air. Linkin Park lead singer Chester Bennington at one point, reminded the crowd to take care of each other and “if someone falls down, what do you do? Pick them up!” (a sad commentary on contemporary society when we have to be reminded to do things like that).
He also commented that it was the “rowdiest crowd” the band had ever seen. Bennington might say that at every show, who knows? But when the 16-year-old I accompanied emerged from the bowels of the crowd, two hours later, he was so sweat-drenched that he appeared as if he’d just stepped out of the shower. And when we got home at 1:00 am, I successfully used the same Jewish guilt strategy to get him into the shower.
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