By Sarah Carnvek
American pop heartthrob and multi-talented singer-actor Justin Timberlake was the first top concert of summer 2014 in Israel. Whereas in years past the arrival of one major contemporary act would have opened and closed the summer hit list, this year's visiting pool of talent is brimming with options.
Timberlake arrived on May 28 in Tel Aviv, but music fans in Israel are only getting started.
"We have an audience, and there's money to be made here," says Benny Dudkevitch, a veteran Israel Radio editor and popular music historian.
"Producers buy tour productions from artists and sell them forward. Israel's audience is known for being welcoming to foreign artists and Israelis are willing to pay for tickets, making it worthwhile for the artists to come here."
A truly amazing summer
Rumors of who is coming and who is not have always been a part of the run-up to summer. Usually big names are dropped in January-February and by summer most of them have fallen to the wayside. This year the rumors proved true.
"We are indeed witnessing a truly amazing summer," says Shuki Weiss, one of Israel's biggest production promoters.
Weiss counts Neil Young and Crazy Horse as a major feather in the cap for Israeli audiences. He has been working for years to get the 69-year-old crooner back to Israel after a Caesarea stopover back in 1993. “After years of negotiations, I am happy to report the arrival of one of the true greats,” he told Israeli media upon announcing the July 17 concert.
The entire music community in Israel gave a big hurrah when legendary British rockers The Rolling Stones officially announced their stopover in Tel Aviv. Despite high ticket prices (NIS 700-NIS 2,800), the Israeli audience snapped up tickets to the June 4 show in Yarkon Park. The concert received great reviews and was a huge success.
Lana Del Rey will play for an Israeli audience in August.
“To say that this is exciting is an understatement,” stated Israeli rocker Rami Fortis, who was chosen to open for the Stones. “I play it cool, but I’m trembling. I’m around their age and this band has accompanied me my whole life. If someone had told me that I would be performing on the same stage as them, I would have thought it was a joke. But it shows that anything in life is possible.”
Live shows sell in Israel
Musicians across the board find that the general global recession has made selling their songs a tough act. Album sales have been in steady decline since 2010 and even digital sales and downloads – according to a Billboard article – took a nosedive in 2013.
"One of the few places artists can still make money is in live shows. As long as they know they can sell tickets here, they'll come to Israel," says Dudkevitch.
The shows are not cheap, but Israelis – and tourists – are digging deep to see their music heroes live on stage.
American boy band The Backstreet Boys sold out their July 29 concert in Ra'anana in just two hours. They added another date, July 30, and sold out that one as well.
British folk-pop guitarist Michael David Rosenberg (better known as Passenger) and the guy behind the mega hit “Let Her Go,” headlined a sold-out show in Tel Aviv on June 10.
Beyond rock
The rock/pop concerts are the main summer music draws but not the only ones.
Leading classical choirs and musicians, including the likes of Hortus Musicus Ensemble (May 31) and prize-winning pianist Maurizio Baglini (June 7); and top jazz musicians like Barbara Dennerlein (June 14), the Paolo Fresu Devil Quartet (June 13) and Mario Rom (June 12) took part in the annual Israel Festival.
Trance aficionados are counting down the days until the world's best deejays hit Israeli shores. The Blu4Dance event in Eilat (July 3-5) includes deejays Markus Schulz, Sebastian Ingrosso, Chicane and Alvaro, among others.
The summer's closer is just as big a name as the ones playing early on in the season: Lady Gaga has announced a date of September 13 for her ARTPOP tour in Israel. The American music sensation performed here first in 2009.
So mark your calendars because the list of upcoming shows is long and varied:
- Gong (July 3)
- Brian Jonestown Massacre (July 15)
- Neil Young and Crazy Horse (July 17)
- Paul Anka (July 24)
- Backstreet Boys (July 29-30)
- Kansas (August 5)
- America (August 7)
- Kurt Vile and the Violators (August 12)
- Lana Del Rey (August 20)