By Mordechai Tiefenbrunn
From Caesaria twice to the Nokia Hall, this past, Wednesday, August 28th, a concert took place in Rishon Letzion’s “Live Park” massive stage. It was certainly one of the more impressive concerts on the international Jewish music scene, with many hours of preparation invested in making sure it came out just to perfection. I had the tremendous privilege of attending Yaakov Shwekey’s latest Israeli concert.
After a full year of highly focused planning of the content, creative media, and design, all produced by Sharon Daniel and his team, Shwekey checked off yet another box on his career resume by hosting both Shlomi Shabbat (Kollot and Ein Od Milvado) and Yonatan Razel (new song called Dovid Hamelech and of course Vehi Sheamdah) If that wasn’t enough, there were surprise performances by Israeli superstar Yishai Ribo (Racheim), and the talented Jewish kid duo Tzemed Yeled, and along the way during the course of the concert, also received a Platinum award from YouTube for having garnered over 100 million views between all of his videos.
For three glorious hours, from 9PM-11:30 PM Shwekey mesmerized and energized the entire crowd who all practically refused to sit in their seats. The audience was full of people from every Israeli demographic, from Chareidim to Chilonim, who were all fascinated by the impressive lineup on the set list, which for the first time in Jewish music history, was produced with the new “Time Code” technology, which synchronizes the music being played with the lights and the multimedia.
R’ Avi Berman from the OU Israel organization also spoke about and explained the important work that the OU has been doing lately and during the past 40 years since they were established in the country, and how Yaakov spent this past Motzei Shabbos at their Zula center with teens at risk, singing with them and listening to their stories.
The show was just non-stop, it started with a few slow Chuppah songs and ballads, and then just went more and more crazy as the set list went on. Some of the highlights that were songs were oldies such as Shomati, Ben Bag Bag, Ma Ma Ma, and others. Newer hits really got the crowd up and out of their seats, such as Aish, Yishtabach Shemo, Inshallah, and more.
The concert featured an impressive orchestra led by maestro Rafi Greidi, Creative and artistic direction from Izeek Daniel, sound engineer by Moshik Tzabbari, Lighting arrangement by Shai Souissa, as well as many others on the vast team who made this night so truly special.
Photos: Moshe Biton / Chaim Tuito / Shlomi Pinto
