Moshav Band

Last night, we went to a concert - Ira and I, Jessica and Daniel and Miriam and Peretz (Daniel's sister and brother in law). We went to see the Moshav Band (with warm up by Makor - some up and coming group that has members related to Moshav Band guys). We arrived and wondered why the parking lot was so empty - we were a bit early, having eaten dinner out and the service was lousy (but the humous was excellent and different - it was Turkish humous, very creamy with a pleasant beany quality) and we figured we'd have coffee at the bar before they opened the doors. The concert started at 9:45pm but of course, The MoshavB didn't come out until about 11:00pm and that was late for us old people but we hung in gamely. There were people milling about - or should I say, there were children milling about. We gladly noted a few older types and then realized that they seemed to be chaperones of the younger crowd. Actually, that's not completely true but certainly if this crowd of concertgoers drives, they either don't have cars in Israel or are still in school/army or who knows what. We waited to pick up our tix behind a couple of young, religious guys who were querying the box office person, "hey dude, do you have more tickets?" The crowd was also unabashedly English speaking. Given our advanced age, we monitored the seating situation carefully and moved in quickly for seats when the doors opened. We were comfy, except for the continual ebb and flow of young things back and forth in the row the entire evening - is it that they all pee in groups or that they all have to pee alot or what is going on in the bathroom? Ok, let's not go there.

The Moshav Band was great. They are a band that has gone through alot of changes and developments over the years. They started out as a band with religous themed music, mostly in hebrew. Three of the main guys are all from english speaking homes but have grown up in Israel. Their music has a reggae feel alot of the time as well and the lead singer has a great voice with fabulous range and he does great scatlike stuff in hebrew and arabic. The drummer was a woman which was so cool and she was excellent. They did alot of cuts from their newest release and most of it is in english and while the themes are still often jewish, the music no longer has that jewish sound - sharp rock sound, lots of reggae and rap like stuff, always well executed instrumentally. They'll be touring in the US with Matisyahu, the reggae, Hasidic singer. Check it out.

Vacation days. The kids are all off. Akiva had school yesterday and today and his teacher reported that he sang lots of Sukkot songs in school. The big boys have been sleeping in and enjoying the relaxation. Gabe had a baseball clinic today which he enjoyed and he and Ira biked back and forth which was adventurous but not that bad - it's all a matter of figuring out the hills and getting onto the sidewalk when the roads are too narrow and traffic too busy. Natan and I went for a swim at Ramat Rachel. Tomorrow, we're off to Tel Aviv for the day.

Moadaim l'simcha to all enjoying Sukkot.