This week, Travis Barker, best known as Blink-182's drummer, was quoted as saying in an interview to the Rolling Stone magazine:
"Obviously, there's a huge pop-punk revival right now. And rock music is on its way back."
He was probably present yesterday at "Ozen Bar" in Tel Aviv because this sentence is exactly what happened there !!!
A powerful and energetic punk rock performance, with a bunch of an amazing talents at such a high level. It sounds so insanely good, so professional, sharp, sweeping and deadly.
This was the first appearance of the Israeli punk-rock / pop band "Bare Dreams" since the COVID, we saw them two years ago as the opening act for Walkways and their music just penetrated our veins.
So we had to be present at this show !!
This wonderful ensemble was formed in 2017 by Eldar Moshe (drums), Itay Aviv (vocals and guitar), Itamar Hayuth (bass) and Roee Berezowitz (guitar). Eldar and Itay grew up together and from the beginning they knew exactly what was the musical direction they wanted for the band. All the band members work and create together and bring each their own influences, the band's musical style is mainly influenced by bands like My Chemical Romance, Paramore, Jimmy Eat World and more according to Itay.
They released their first EP "Au Revoir" in 2018. Itay said that this EP is a collection of songs composed of the inspirations of each of the band members. Each brought to the table his part and what began as an acoustic session with classical guitars and drums evolved into an electric EP consisting of six songs, all written and produced by the band members with the help of Priel Horesh (the drummer of Walkways). After the release of the EP, the band went to tour the stages in Israel and performed wherever possible to distribute its music, in addition to Israel, the band participated in several festivals in Europe and managed to create a growing handful of fans.
In order to continue the momentum and step up a notch, the band members decided to record their second EP abroad, they looked for a suitable producer and found the English producer Neil D. Kennedy who worked with bands like Creeper, Milk Teeth, Boston Manor and more. They traveled faraway to London and recorded their second EP "Lost With All Hands" which was released in April 2020. The band members formed relationships with Neil and other bands that were recording in the studios at the time and were scheduled to go on tour in UK to promote the EP with the English band MAYPINE, but the COVID canceled the tour.
Like other artists around the world, Bare Dreams plans for 2020 were also disrupted by the COVID, apart from the canceled tour, the plans to record their first album were disrupted. Flights were canceled, pre-production was canceled and the band members found themselves under immense pressure. It is important to note that the band members do everything by themselves, like many artists in the Israel they save dollar by dollar and set themselves goals that they try to achieve one after the other whenever funding allows.
Although the flights were canceled but the Pre-Production did not and the band performed it with the all-too-popular tool for 2020, the Zoom. On the first opportunity the skies opened they flew to Neil's recording studio "The Ranch" located in a town near London and worked on their debut album. Itay said that the connection with Neil was significantly strengthened during the work on the album in relation to the period of the EP. He and his Jewish wife (important to note) adopted the band members, supported them and worked closely with them to make sure this album will the best it could be. The album is due out soon and we are looking forward to it.
So yesterday we arrived at the Ozen Bar club a little late right at the end of the opening act "The City Revival" and waited together with the rest of the fans who sold out the tickets for the show for the band Bare Dreams. The band members took the stage and you could already feel the electricity in the air, you felt that just as the members are excited to take the stage after so long, their audience is also excited as if they have been waiting for this moment for years. Although there was a slight technical problem in the intro, it did not stop the band from exploding on the first note of the opening song "Crooked Smile" which came out as a standalone B-Side in August 2020. From here the band continued to perform 10 more songs of which four were new ones. During the show, they said goodbye to their previous bassist and one of the band's founders, Itamar Hayut, who was replaced by Shachar Schwartz (who is very well known from the band Dream Escape).
You know us when we start to be emotional, so let us burst into the emotions...
As we mentioned at the beginning, there is something very powerful in this band. Their power in music is very high, the combination of the deadly Eldar on drums along with Shachar on bass as a rhythm section that carries with insane precision and flexibility the diverse dynamics of the songs led by Roy's guitar along with Itay's rhythm. And the singing... what an amazing vocals, how powerful, how flexible, what a range that is so refreshing and puts an outer space energy into the refreshing punk-rock style as it is. There was no moment of rest in the show except between the songs when Itay and Roy let us take a breath while tuning the guitars. The audience that was waiting for this show for such a long time, supported the band with energies that almost blew the ceiling of the club. We think that even the band members were shocked from the level of audience proficiency in the lyrics and joining in the chorus and especially the breaking sections of the songs which are masterpieces that exploded in the small club.
We can really repeat ourselves several times now and not feel pathetic because it's excite us every time all over again when we encounter local, Israeli bands that combine such high quality music with performance, energies and charisma seen in the big bands we all know.
We invite you to listen to their first EP "Au Revoir" and to their second EP "Lost With All Hands".
And ofcourse we can't wait to their debut album to come you should too!!