A Peek into a Mind

Yesterday moonlight and I went to see a preformance of Evergreen in the ENAV culture center in Tel Aviv. I would be honest and edmit I wasn’t expecting too much. I’ve listened to Irish music in pubs around Ireland and ofcourse listen to commercial artists like Clannad and Altan. That’s beside of listening to popular Irish music as in the shows Riverdance and Lord of the Dance. An Israeli band playing Irish music? Well, that sounded nice but I didn’t expect alot.

And boy, was I surprised. These guys were GOOD. Really good!
I’m not going to write a whole criticsm here, but these guys are really good. The show was too formal, as almost all live Irish sessions I’ve experienced were in pubs or a place with similar atmosphere, but the Evergreen members did a fine job anyay.

If you want a taste of them check out these MP3 files they posted on mp3.com

There are 4 members in the band - Michal Shahar (played the flutes, harpsichord and sang), Gal Shahar (violin, Viola, Bodhran and Michal’s husband…), Eitan Hoffer (guitars, violin, viola) and the magnificent Abe Doron (all drums and Percussions).

By far, Abe is magnetizing the eyes of the audience as he jumps from this drum to the other, doing the special effects and all. I’m not saying the others aren’t good - it’s just that Abe keeps moving the whole time which makes things a little more alive on stage (not to mention all the interesting stuff he uses. Moonlight almost choke when she thought he was waving a snake!). I should also state that Abe had preformed for 5 years with the RIVERDANCE show, before making ‘Aliya’. Michal seems to be the one doing most of the lead parts, playing fluets and whistles. She also proves to sing wonderfully, though in 2 songs she asked the audiance to participate with a not-so-simple part…

They also preformed an original song with irish music. Was a little strange to hear a celtic tune along with hebrew words, but they did a good job here, too.

All in all I enjoyed the show and when we went out I saw dozens of people stand in line to buy the Debute CD.