Here’s a question for you. Where doing aging rock and pop stars go to play to massive and enthusiastic crowds of fans when they’re closing in on their pension book? Well, Israel, of course.
 
Yes, Israel, more readily associated in the mind of many with conflict, danger, adverse headlines on ‘News at Ten’ and religious strife, is the venue of choice for many aging ravers that you might have thought had disappeared stage left and flounced off into the sunset, or who you were all but sure had ‘pegged it’ some time ago!

 
Could it be the blue skies, the outstanding falafel and shawarma, the Dead Sea spa treatments, divine inspiration in the Old City of Jerusalem, or
possibly the guarantee of filling a stadium full of western-style music fans,
that has tempted some of the biggest names in the business to perform here in 2011, and for a significant number to pledge to return having enjoyed the experience so much.

 
Well, whatever it is, if you are an Israeli of a certain age or are a young music lover who enjoys the sounds of the ‘60’s, 70’s 7 80’s, this year has seen you spoilt for choice as to which star of a bygone era to go and spend you shekels on. Here are just a few on this year’s roster to bring back floods of memories of dancing in the school disco, at your barmitzvah party, 
office ‘knees-up’ and gigs around the globe.

 
First up let’s introduce Deep Purple, the aging rockers having gone down a treat when they played two dates in May just down the road from me at the Roman amphitheatre at Cesarea, a stunning setting with a backdrop of the
Mediterranean Sea at sunset. They were sold out for both gigs. Echo & The
Bunnymen refused to cancel their appearance in late-April having been bombarded by hate mail and apparently produced a great show in the shadow of the iconic former power station at Reading on Tel Aviv’s northern side of the port.

 
Neil Sedaka, well into his late-60’s these days, he of the ‘Laughter In the Rain’, ‘Solitaire’and ‘Oh Carole’ packed them in at the Nokia Arena in Tel Aviv, only a week or two after another 50’s/60’s icon Paul Anka had bowled the crowds over at the same venue on his third concert in Israel in the last two years. To prove how much the man who wrote ‘My Way’, ‘Put Your Head On My Shoulder’ and many, many more, as they say, loves coming to Israel, he came back to do an encore performance on November 12 and sold that out as well. 

 
Duran Duran, Simon le Bon et al, strutted their stuff successfully during a high summer run that also included the likes of Roxette, Suede, Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music, and the rather more contemporary Moby, before the big hitters came to town.

 
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the hottest tickets in Israel this summer were for none other than Bob Dylan, for Leonard Cohen, for Paul Simon, for Andrea Bocelli, and for Jose Carreras, and just when you thought the crinklies had withered away for the year I opened my weekend paper to see half-page ads for the forthcoming concerts of none other than every Latino grandmother’s wet dream Julio Iglesias, whilst Engelbert, he of the Humperdink, is to be prised from his bathchair, or is it given day release from the ‘Twilight Home for the Bewildered’ and will be doing it ‘one more time’ in a showstopping gig in downtown Tel Aviv.

 
Now, in case you think I’m being cynical about these aging and aged stars coming here, I’m not, I think it’s great. Many of these guys and girls can still perform the socks of the younger generation having spent decades
perfecting the art of live performance, as I myself can testifying having seen
the amazing Sir Paul McCartney in concert here a couple of years ago, (he
greeted the crowd in Hebrew, then to be politically correct also wished the
Muslims in the audience a happy Ramadan).

 
I was more than pleasantly surprised at a knockout gig I attended by no lesser a half-forgotten pop idol than Gilbert O’Sullivan, he of the knitted tank tops, frizzy hair and the flat cap. The biggest clue as to how nervous O’Sullivan was as to the reaction of an Israeli audience, was that for the first four numbers he didn’t speak a word. It was only when he made a
wisecrack comment to one of his band and it was met with laughter from the crowd, that the man who penned ‘Claire’,‘Alone Again (Naturally)’, ‘Get
Down’, and ‘Matrimony’ to name but a few, realised that the audience actually spoke English and enjoyed a joke. From that moment on he came to life and by the last number was giving it the old air guitar on top of his grand piano with a sixteen-piece backing band bringing the house down.


I’ve lost count of the number of stars who have performed here recently, including Madonna, who have gone on record as saying that playing
Israel is one of the great experiences of their career and that they are
overwhelmed by the warmth they feel from the Israeli audiences.

 
Whether you are a regular visitor or not, enjoying great music in stunning settings such as Bocelli’s opera concert on top of the Massada rock, in
Roman amphitheatres, in modern concert venues or in the big football stadiums, maybe you should come here yourself and enjoy the country with the backing track of some of your all-time favourite musicians, singers and their songs.