I went to see and hear the Alan Parsons Project live in Tel Aviv last night. I’ve been a fan of The Alan Parsons Project for over 30 years now. I was only about 8 or 9 when I first heard the album “Tales of Mystery and Imagination” (their first album released in 1976) and I was hooked from the beginning since it used some kind of amazing (for the time) robot/synthesizer voice on the vocals of the song “The Raven”. So when it was announced that they would play in Tel Aviv in February, I knew I had to go see them live. In general I think any artist who defies the bullying tactics of Roger Waters and the BDS crowd deserves my support, but in this case it was a total no brainer considering my history with the band. And I’m sure you’ll all understand my delight when Alan Parsons (or at least the person responsible for his social media accounts) linked to the Israellycool article about Roger Waters’ email exchange with Alan himself on both Twitter and his Facebook page. Here’s the Facebook page link.
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So off I went to the concert with my eldest daughter – the one on which I have had the greatest success forcing my music taste. The concert was held in the 8000 seat Yad Eliyahu Arena in Tel Aviv and it was completely packed. We had very decent seats in the 3rd row of the upper tier, enough on the side to be close but not on too much of an angle.
Here’s a photo I took from my seats:
The show was TERRIFIC. They played pretty much all of their best known songs – Games People Play, You Don’t believe, Time, PsychoBabble, I Wouldn’t Want to be Like You (unfortunately not dedicated to Roger) and of course their most famous song – Eye In The Sky with guest vocals by Marina Maximimilian who was a popular runner up in the 5th season of the Israeli version of American Idol (Kochav Nolad).
Another guest appearance was Avi Singolda who plays guitar in Shlomo Artzi’s band (think Israeli Springsteen). And a big surprise was guest appearance by Israeli mega pop star Aviv Gefen who joined them on stage for Old and wise.
In fact one of the members of the band was Israeli bassist Guy Erez who has been playing with Alan Parsons on and off for a few years now. Here’s some video I took myself of the song “Wouldn’t Want to Be Like You” featuring a great bass solo by Guy Erez.
At the end of the concert Alan said something diplomatic about how he realizes that there is opposition to playing in Israel, but he greatly enjoyed playing in Tel Aviv. Not quite the “Screw You Roger Waters” while flipping him the bird that I was hoping for, but I guess Alan just thinks actions speak louder than words. All in all the concert was a hugely entertaining night out and a colossal fail for BDS.
