Common Sensorium: Getting Infected by Fake Balkans in Jerusalem

So it's been a good month of late-night partying in the parking lots of Jerusalem. First, we had a 'Black Party' with world beatsters Balkan Beat Box in mid-November, put on by the Iriyah (City Hall), in the parking lot just under city hall. Then on Thursday night, Infected Mushroom brought their psychedelic mix of electronica, metal, trip hop and breakbeat to another parking lot in the city center, directly across from the Supreme Court.

Of course Mayor Nir Barakat was at both shows making sure all the young Jerusalemites out there know how much he cares about us and getting a photo op in a room with 5,000 after-midnight revelers. His speech before Infected was especially messianic and went something like this: "You can feel a change happening in Jerusalem, a deep and meaningful change in the air. We're taking back the city." He got raucous applause for that last remark.

The crowds at both shows were mainly people in their mid-to-late 20s into their mid-30s. The crowd was definitely shadier at Infected Mushroom, with the smell of high grade marijuana everywhere by the time Infected took the stage at 1:30 a.m. My brother also almost got my credit card and license stolen outside an hour earlier - I had given them to him to pick up our will call tickets and I'm still not sure what happened exactly but it was a stressful first 15 minutes to the night.

I had already come off a high of running a successful live event for the financial website I work for ending at about 10:30 p.m. local time and requiring many hours of preparation in advance, so by the time Infected came on, I was ready to throw down. The crew was me, my brother, Oren N. who had a big shit-eating grin for most of the night though he doesn't especially like electronic music, and Ilana Rachel of Nachlaot fame. She had quite a story herself as she almost got crushed by the crowd from her front row spot and had to be pulled out by a 250 pound Russian security guard.

Musically, both concerts were on a very high level but Balkan Beat Box was definitely the better of the two shows in my opinion. I wanted Infected to stretch out the electronic interludes more at many points but they kept mixing in more vocals, and I'm not the biggest fan of some of their newer stuff.

I first got into them when I was volunteering on Kibbutz Ketura down in the Arava Valley, 50k north of Eilat. They had just released their double disk, Converting Vegetarians, and I still think the 2nd disk of that album is their best (and one of my top 25 favorite albums of all time - I'll have to draw up an actual list at some point). Some of the local kibbutz kids that I used to go to trance parties with were into them and that second disk was a favorite during the after party unwind.

Anyway, for all the complaining I hear at times that Israel is a live music wasteland, I've caught some great shows since getting here over 5 years ago including Medeski Martin and Wood, Arrested Development, Air, and now BBB and Infected Mushroom. And that doesn't count local favorites Shotei Hanevua who Simone and I saw 10 times before they broke up, Jazz master Avishai Cohen and the now defunct Third World Love.

Check out some pics from the shows (Jerusalem.com/Ben J. gets credit for the first 3) - as always, good times:

Balkan Beat Box (11.11.09)