Yesterday we attended Ninet Tayeb live show at the Barbie Club in Tel Aviv and we are still mesmerized !!!
If you thought you knew Ninet because you listened to her albums or followed her on the news and social media, then let us disagree with you, you do not !!!
If you did not attend Ninet's live show and experienced it on stage, then you probably do not really know her, period !!!
Ninet we witnessed yesterday at the Barbie is in our humble opinion (hold on tight !!) a combination of Bob Dylan, Lzzy Hale, Joan Jett and Arctic Monkeys, but she's mostly Ninet !!! She brings the folk the punk, and the hard rock with the loud riffs, tremendous screams and insane rhythms and she takes herself and her listeners for a trip along a changing landscape, between the sounds of music in each new song !!!
And why do we say that, because we experienced exactly the same thing !!
After a quick scan of the digital ticket we entered the lobby of the Barbie (redesigned) which gives a feeling of a prestigious club, well maybe prestigious it is a bit excessive but now it gives a more modern feel than a dim club in south Tel Aviv. But then, very quickly something else caught our attention, something that felt different to us compared to our recent visits to the place. The audience !!
The audience was so diverse that at one point after repeated glances and rubbing eyes we felt that someone here did not quite understand what he was going to see and that included us too !!
We went inside and as soon as the sound of the tuning guitar (of Goetz, as Ninet calls him) was heard, the place filled to the brim. The stage looked like it was designed to the show (relative to Barbie) and included various and varied means of lighting and the Ninet logo that appears on squares in the center of the stage. The lights went out and only the classic chandelier in the center of the Barbie ceiling remained lit. The entire lower level picked up the cell phones and got the rock star in a live video to the stage.
The band members, settle on their instruments, Ninet took the stage, pressesd her lips to the golden microphone and begins to recite a verse from the "Beastie Boys" song "Sabotage". Immediately, a nuclear sensation begins to rumble in our brains and it turns out that the whole audience felt the same, roaring their souls together to the sounds of the recitation and the sharp transition to the opening riff of the song "Superstar". A song from her latest album "Paper Parachute" released in 2017.
The crowd in a frenzy state sings all the lyrics, the excitement and joy flooding everyone. She continues to the second song "ICU", a song from her third album "Sympathetic Nervous System" which came out in 2012 and we start to feel how the electricity starts to flow to us all over our body as we try with all our strength to get our dropped jaw back in place.
At the end of the song she takes a break to stop for a moment and soak up everything that is happening around her. It's evident that she's excited from atmosphere and the audience and to think that only a few weeks earlier she performed at the legendary "Troubadour" club in California. A club that was a milestone for huge artists like Elton John, John Lennon, Melvins, Guns N 'Roses, Mudhoney and many others.
So Ninet gets excited from the loving audience and thanks him for coming to her show and moving on to the song "Highway", a song that first came out in 2020, but will probably only appear on the next album which is on its way. Then, the show takes a turn, Ninet performs the song "Hero", a song she wrote and Dudu Tassa composed. Suddenly the sound changes from a nervous riffs and roars of vocals to a Mediterranean vibe with local curls and guitar frets.
With each song performed on stage we feel that Ninet takes us on a journey to a different place and a different time, a journey in her life that moves between Los Angeles and Tel Aviv. At times we feel like we attend an international show the Yarkon Park (not exaggerating) and at other moments we feel like at a local show. Her ability, her talent, her musicality is just phenomenal and mesmerizing. Ninet came to take the Barbie in the air and she does it with mesmerizing talent, we will repeat the word mesmerizing a lot !!!
After the songs "Talk" and "Child" Ninet takes us with an electrifying version of the song "Feel The Buzz", the audience screams again and the "buzz" is undoubtedly felt in our bones and the electrifying atmosphere in the club. It continues on to another electrifying version and this time to the song "I got up to dance" and again we move from abroad to Israel and back.
At the end of the song Ninet replaces her shiny blue guitar with an acoustic guitar and stands on stage in front of the microphone with her gorgeous smile, graceful dimples and plays her amazing new and awesome song "Who Is Us", just like in an audition for one of the reality shows (we did not say "Star Born").
She calms the volume down a bit and immediately afterwards she switches to singing "Just so the wind doesn't fall", this time she is completely alone on stage, with the spotlight and the audience. In an intimate atmosphere, Ninet seems to caress and soothe each of us as if she were here for us. Ninet said that on the last Memorial Day she got up in the morning (US time) and found out that a lot of teachers in Israel tagged her on Instagram with this song. She said excitedly that for her it was a circle cluser, because she herself started singing at school ceremonies, everyone knew her as "the one" who sang at ceremonies and now seeing kids around the country perform her song at the school ceremony very touched and moved her.
She continues to switch between songs in Hebrew and English, between inconceivable intensities and melancholy caresses and we... are mesmerized !!!
After "Self Destructive Mind" and "Something To Say" Ninet ends the show with "She Knows".
Here we have something to say, since Ninet's first appearance in "A Star Is Born" reality show, Ninet has become the "national sweetheart", the cute and sweet singer who sang cute, sweet and moving songs (see entry "Sea of Tears"). Ninet's first album "Barefoot" which was produced Aviv Geffen, is the result of a singer at the beginning of her career who was thrown into the studio and required to release an album in order to materialise the expectations and potential. In our humble opinion Ninet does not hate this album but she definitely wants to put this image behind her (or rather, delete it altogether) and to bring out the all-too-talented musician she is !!
And this is exactly what she does for "She Knows", she performs it in a "Led Zepplin" version taken from the song "Kashmir", a 180 degree reversal from the original performance, an amazing and powerful performance to end the show before the encore.
By the way, the show was produced by Yossi Mizrahi, Ninet's husband.
After a brief break from the stage she returns again alone with her acoustic guitar and shares a new song "Reborn", we have no way of describing what happened on stage. Ninet's fingers moved lightly on the guitar and her amazing voice filled the place with moving energies. Alone, exposed with body and soul, with no effects and no distortions or drums.
She continues from there to "Not be afraid at all" and this time the audience takes the lead and sings the song loudly as she nibbles on the verge of tears from excitement and fails to utter a word. She recovers from the exciting experience and moves on to the poignant song "What Happened" which is followed by the all-too-perfect ending with the song "Elinor". Ninet flies through the air with the crowd roaring her soul as the distortions and drums shake the club and she is like a hybrid of Robert Plant and Mick Jagger raging on stage !!
Yes, we are still hypnotized !!
Hypnotized by the diverse and different crowd that showered boundless love on his powerful rock star, who sang all the songs in Hebrew and English aloud, as if it were a cohesive group of groupies that goes with her everywhere.
Hypnotized by the changing style of English songs to the transition of Hebrew songs, as if we were at Barbie and Yarkon Park at the same time.
Hypnotized by the amazing musical abilities of this all-too-talented creator, musician, singer and guitarist who at one moment roars, raves and shaters her guitar and at another moment caresses, excites and melts. A complex, sophisticated and fascinating musician who not only gives in a head banging music but does so wisely, creatively and powerfully.
Since the performance of the songs on the albums does not really reflect the performance on stage, it is difficult for us to send you now to listen to them, but we will do it all just to have a chance that it will make you go to her show, because you must go to a Ninet Tayeb show, otherwise you do not really know her!!!
Listen to the playlist we prepared based on the show's setlist.