Klapter Benefit Concert - My Personal Experience


Inspite of the sad circumstances, Kaveret managed to give the audience a great experience and make the benefit concert seem like a regular one.

They got on stage at 20:45 with the regular Inspite Of Everything (Lamrot HaKol), and immediately started joking: "You thought you got rid of us...?" and "We got the money, thank you and good night!" were among the first things they said. In a more serious atmosphere, Gidi read a letter to Klapter from prime minister Ehud Barak.

All in all, they performed their regular concerts repertoire, with the additions of a soft version of The Cold Shoulder (BaYom U'BaLayla), Klapter's "Boi Nisha'er" and a lovely cover of The Beatles' "With A Little Help From My Friends", dedicated to the audience.

Although the sound wasn't very good (Sanderson's guitar could barely be heard, as well as Oleartchik's bass, and there were occasional feedbacks), and the lighting kept annoying the audience at times, the concert had its moments:

After Klapter's excellent solo in She's So Pretty (Hi Kol Kach Yafa), the audience cheered, and Klapter let out a smile; Efraim Shamir did a great solo on Oleartchik & Gov's Lama Libech Kmo Kerach?; Matematika was given a soft rock touch; Klapter played various solos all over his Tuned Tone (Tzlil Mechuvan), and won the gratitude of the audience, which rose up on its feet and applauded for about 2 minutes. Klapter signed the audience that he's strong, and thanked everyone, as well as the band members; Gidi, who probably got bored with the original, chewed up text of HaVatik sketch, had some great improvisations, including a remark about being Trumpeldor's right hand, and helping him to "get satisfaction"; During Hora (Hora Heachzut) lots of people simply left their seats and started jumping and dancing near the stage, as if it was a regular park concert; Tea And Sugar (Sukar BaTe) was funnily combined with Harry Belafonte's "Day-O"; And of course, another beautiful moment was Oleartchik's moving tribute to Klapter, replacing his usual sophisticated bass solo on Yo Ya with the simple "Yitzhak Melech Israel".

But at times one could notice it was a Klapter benefit concert - whenever Klapter played a solo, the band members moved to the back of the stage, or focused on Klapter's playing; Two songs from Klapter's solo career were performed; The crowd cheered whenever Klapter did a guitar solo, or sang a solo phrase; And Klapter himself played sitting down whenever he could, unlike the band, and especially Oleartchik and Sanderson, who kept moving around. Let's all hope we'll have Klapter back in no time, alive and well.