Chris Cornell rocks Tel Aviv

June 22, 2009 - 4:32 PM by Harry · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Music 

Chris Cornell Rocks Tel AvivFormer Soundgarden/Audioslave frontman Chris Cornell rocked Tel Aviv last week but unfortunately did not rock me. However it’s not his fault. I’m apparently getting old and last Wednesday was without question of one of the chief indicators of this unfortunate event. I should have known it wasn’t going to go well when it became evident that I needed to stop for a double espresso on the way the show. I was accompanying a friend of mine who was reviewing the gig for one of daily’s here. I received a coveted photo pass which allowed me to stand in wide space between the audience and the performer for the first three songs. It’s a place where I’ve spent a lot of time before and is always exciting. Angling for a great shot while pushing away other photographers is one of my favorite pastimes. It’s a fun place to be but I made two critical errors. I did not drink water beforehand and, even worse, I forgot my earplugs. So the massive amount of body heat emanating from the crowd combined with the humid air and concert speakers pounding in my ears did not do me well. At all.

Granted it was fun shooting but I just couldn’t recover after such a traumatic experience and quickly retired to the sidelines and spent the rest of the concert sitting on the grass drinking bottled water with my friend who was equally as enthused. Not very rock and roll of us. The final sign of the twilight of my youth was that towards the end of the show I couldn’t help but start thinking how long it was going to take me to get out of the parking lot. I kept looking at my watching thinking about how, as time went on, I was going to be losing important sleep time. And so I left in order to the beat the traffic right as the encore began. And I walked to my car, head down in shame as Cornell belted out one of Soundgarden’s biggest hits in the background.

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Israelis go on tour

May 20, 2009 - 8:32 PM by David · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Business, General, Music, Pop Culture, Travel 

Springsteen's just a short flight away for Israelis.

Springsteen's just a short flight away for Israelis.

There’s plenty of rock shows being imported here this summer, but nothing that you’d want to write home about: Appearances by Joe Jackson, Suzanne Vega, Steve Vai, Chris Cornell and Dream Theater, may satisfy some people, and Leonard Cohen in September will likely be a grand event. And we may even have Madonna to celebrate Yom Kippur with.

But when bona fide heavyweights like Springsteen, U2, The Killers, Coldplay and Pearl Jam are only a couple thousand miles away in Europe, it’s a little hard to get excited about our dubious offerings.

But thanks to a couple of Israeli entrepreneurial endeavors, getting to those superstars isn’t any more difficult than finding parking near Ramat Gan stadium. On.Tour, a Tel-Aviv based online rock & roll travel agency – and similar companies like Kavei Hofsha – provide Israeli music fans with package tours to the top festivals and shows in Europe – including airfare, hotel, transportation and, of course, the coveted tickets to the shows, even those that are listed as sold-out.

And it’s suprisingly affordable – not much more than the vacation without the concert tickets would be. A quick glance at the On.Tours homepage finds a generous offering of summer festivals, including this year’s Rock Werchter, featuring Coldplay, Metallica and The Killers; Denmark’s Roskild with Coldplay, Oasis and Slipknot; Germany’s Rock Im Park (RIP) featuring The Killers, The Kooks and Placebo; Istanbul’s questionably titled Rock & Coke, featuring Linkin Park, Nine Inch Nails and the Kaiser Chiefs; and some of the most popular attractions – the heavy metal festivals like Wacken 2009, The Ozora Festival and Hellfest. The average price for a package, including three or four nights’ accommodations, runs between NIS 4,000 and NIS 5,000.

“Pretty quickly, we learned that Israelis weren’t interested only in music festivals, but in concerts as well. There’s not a lot of top names coming here, and through us, you can go see just about any of the top names touring Europe,” Ido Mart, the company’s marketing director told me last week.

Indeed, the site offers packages for artists ranging from U2 and Springsteen to Britney Spears and Take That, all for prices similar to the festival tariff. According to Mart, On.Tours not only removes the hassle of arranging your own flights and accommodations, it also eases the stress of the biggest task of all – getting tickets to sold out shows.

Lianna Yedida, 25, who has traveled on three On.Tours packages, including two festivals in Europe and is signed up to see Radiohead this summer in Berlin, can’t praise the service too much.

“Everything was great, and of course, it’s easier than doing it yourself. They worry about everything,” she said, adding that the attention to detail was the biggest feature. According to Mart, those details include providing free transportation from the airport to the hotel and back again, and other amenities, like tips on after-show parties and access to them.

So, if you’re going to take a vacation outside of Israel anyway, why not make it a musical one?

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