2024-03-01 05:02:08
In an exciting nostalgic atmosphere, Carmela Gross Wagner’s performance at Barbie Namel Jaffa became more than just an evening of music. It was like going back to the nineties, with all the excitement and the ‘we were there’ feeling. A crowd of forty-plus-year-olds with a twinkle in their eyes and youthful excitement who grew up on the sounds of Israeli rock in the 90s, a period that shaped their musical identity.
This week the barbie was marked by “Carmela Gross Wagner” 5 days almost in a row of the band’s reunion performances and the album “Black Flower” and it is not at all surprising that 5000 people voted with their feet, bought a ticket and came excited, after all this album was always on our “The Best” list Oof” and who of us here didn’t include “Midoscope Butterflies” in a mix tape we made for someone very special who was with us in math class
Carmela Gross Wagner are Eran Tzur, Avshalom Caspi, Uri Black and Uri Frost, originally a quartet, a classic Led Zeppelin style structure, bass guitar, keyboard drums only in a darker and dirtier style that is adapted to the early nineties with a considerable influence of the previous decade and the Dark Eighties genre – New wave.
The beginning was in the previous band of Eran Tzur and Uri Black, which is of course the “Tatu” band, besides which there were also members Yuval Mesner, Alona Daniel, Uri Mills and Micha Michaeli, the band that released one album that is still considered by many (and me) to be the only one of its kind.
In any case, the album “Black Flower” by Carmela Gross Wagner was released in 1991, there were songs on there that were already big hits such as “Impressionist Picture” and “Miscellaneous Butterflies” that the editors of the night really liked to play, but by and large the album itself did not sell In Hysteria, the sound was not particularly pop and catchy, a lot of distortions, also quite a few words and sentences that cannot be played on the radio, what is more, it must be remembered that the great flowering of Israeli rock was only about two years later when bands like Where the Child is, the Witches and Monica Sex released their debut albums.
Avshalom Caspi Uri Frost Uri Black Eran Tzur
Carmella Gross Wagner – Barbie 2024
After the release of the first album the band underwent changes in its original composition, in 1994 Eran Tzur released his first solo album “Blind in the Sea” where the band members participate in playing and producing and therefore their names were also added to the album but not long after with the establishment of Eran’s solo career Tzur the band announced its disbandment.
Since then we have already had several reunion shows, sometimes with a full line-up, sometimes only in a partial form, such a full reunion of the original band we got to see in 2012, which is 12 years ago, wow, time flies, so here we are at Barbie,, performance 2 of 5, nine Half the smoking area is full to capacity, yes, there is the outside beer and the hot dog in a bun with sesame seeds for those who asked, traditions that are also nostalgically anchored back in the years.
But the main nostalgia starts with ten zero zero, a new Barbie, an old band, a blue stage and the unique guitar sound of Uri Frost opens with the familiar solo of the song that asked to be first “Carmela Gross Wagner”, yes it sounds like what we wanted it to be, everyone sings with everyone and we continue For the next song “The disease will be talked about” which won the title of the first song in Hebrew that talks about the AIDS disease, so yes, I respect, I understand, but even today after 33 years I will not sing their words out loud.
After the opening of this mower, we are in a sharp turn towards song number 3, one of the band’s biggest hits, “Misery Butterflies”, the love song that we all love, it’s time for all the couples in the hall to go into hug mode and raise lighters in the air, the trouble is that this song came too fast, there wasn’t enough of the boy An early EP in the playlist, such a big hit is expected to be performed somewhere near the middle-end, after some crazy hit like “Summer” or “Impressionist Image”
Carmela Gross Wagner. Photo: Tomer Gilat
The advantage of Carmela Gross Wagner and Eran Tzur is that there are plenty of hits, the list of songs for the evening is 21 in number and almost every one is Golden, the cheeky “Wet and Hot”, “Hanuch Mahanakh” and “In your garden” another charming love song, and quite a few songs from the album as well “Blind in the Sea” such as “The Green Lid” “Claw” “Cockfights” and of course “Summer”, some of them were written and performed after the release of the first album and before the band broke up
The versions are mostly faithful to the original, which is exactly what was detailed to us on the emotional strings, the people here in the audience came to hear, remember and sing all the words and sounds that remind them of their lost youth, nostalgia is a precious commodity and performances like this have no real price even if you price it for us at the box office.
Then came “What are you doing” the song that was originally released during the second album but was already written and performed in 1990 during the group’s golden period, the arrangement tonight is more similar to the slower demo version from the early nineties and not to the one that came out a few years later in “Blind in the Sea” which was Much faster and as sachistic, and also much more complete as a skill and processing.
Carmela Gross Wagner. Photo: Tomer Gilat
The 2024 reunion of Carmela Gross Wagner did not come by chance, originally one performance was planned to celebrate the release of a remaster on a double record of “Black Flower” including songs that were not included on one record and songs that were released a little later, as mentioned the announcement of the union generated crazy demand and generated additional performances and the songs of the bonus record They also get to be on stage 5 nights in a row, among them several gems, one of which is the song “Strangle Me” from 1993, composed and sung by Avshalom Caspi, and was also the only song by Carmela Gross Wagner that was not performed by Eran Tzur. The sound of the broken keyboards that came back during the song is also what caught the ear and quickly threw it to the late eighties and a memory we didn’t know we knew
And as in every Ihud performance that respects itself we also have a guest artist, at the performance the night before it was Hila Roach and tomorrow it will be Yifat Belisano, the legendary soloist of the Wolves, but tonight we are with a real legend, Alona Daniel, as I remember her and Eran Tzur’s collaboration goes a long way Back to the Tato period in the mid-eighties, this evening she is here for two songs, “Women Writing Poetry” (originally it was a duet by Eran Tzur with Korin Alel) and then the mega hit “Impressionist Picture” performed in a fun and rhythmic way and lots of orange and yellow lighting that bathed all the thousands on Barbie Island Optimistically. By the way, this is also the place to mention the amazing video art throughout the performance, the choice of abstract images instead of defined video clips was a worthy step that, together with the precise lighting, turned into an exciting artistic experience
Eran Tzur and Alona Daniel. Photo: Tomer Gilat Carmela Gross Wagner with Alona Daniel. Photo: Tomer Gilat
And now we are getting close to the end with excellent encores, the mega-hit “Summer” that the whole audience loves, loves, loves, followed by the song “Arab Hula” by Berry Sakharof, the lyrics of which were written by Eran Tzur, after which we close the show with the quiet ballad song that also seals the album and its name “Flower Black” that we all sing together “Black flower here comes a flower of crazy light”.
Carmela Gross Wagner – The Union. Photo: Tomer Gilat
Yes, this is the same audience, which after more than three decades remembers the words to each and every song at the concert, this is the audience that turned the shared singing into a form of collective prayer, living proof of the unforgettable power of quality music. It was not just a performance, but a kind of return in time, a celebration of memories and songs that became symbols for an entire generation, with everyone in the audience carrying in their hearts the youth they so longed for.
A glimpse of some moments from the show, video documentation by Yaniv Levy
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