Both the artists were in sync with each other, throwing their arms up at the same time to match the pounding bass.
By ROCKY BAIER, NAOMI GRANTUpdated: JULY 22, 2018 12:49The Chainsmokers(photo credit: SIVAN FARAG)
The Chainsmokers concert wasn’t so much a traditional concert as it was a bass-filled, sweaty party DJed by the Chainsmokers.The concert started with synth filling the air, the stage empty as riffs from ‘Sick Boy’ added to the sound. The pace picked up when Alex Pall and Andrew Taggart appeared behind the DJ booth, and the bass dropped, setting the party tone of the night.The DJ-duo constantly switched from song to song after what couldn’t have been more than a minute at most for nearly the entirety of the concert.The show included parts of their other hits, including ‘Closer,’ ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ and ‘Something Just Like This,’ but never the whole song. A verse or two and chorus of each of these songs was repeated multiple times, often with a dubstep interval strikingly unlike the recording. With ‘Closer,’ the duo sang part of it the first time in what sounded almost like a minor key. One of the band members began ‘Paris’ in a somewhat off-key a capella.The last part of the concert was a mix of music of all different genres, little of which was theirs, including ‘Circle of Life’ from the Lion King, ‘Shout,’ by The Isley Brothers, ‘Every Time We Touch’ by Cascada, ‘Sweet Dreams’ by Eurythmics and ‘Teach Me How to Dougie,’ by Cali Swag District. Closer was also included in this medley, but again they never completed the song, despite it being arguably their most famous song.Both the artists were in sync with each other, throwing their arms up at the same time to match the pounding bass and anticipating the new segments of music as if they were controlling the music by their dancing and not the DJ mixer.Taggart asked if they could try out some new Chainsmokers music, and they played part of a song which might be released with their upcoming second studio album, from which four songs have already been released.There were only two breaks in the sound during the concert, one 45 minutes in and the other one hour and 15 minutes in. During each, the crowd was asked questions.Taggart asked how many people had seen them before and how many people hadn’t, and the cheers from the first-time concert-goers was louder than those of the other fans.Fans in the crowd were all young, with an occasional parent or older fan mixing in with the teenagers and 20-somethings.
Pall and Taggart never spoke in Hebrew and repeated the same phrases, counting down to bass drops and asking “Tel Aviv, are you ready?” and where their fans were.The effects at the concert were typical of EDM concerts: smoke, pyrotechnics, lasers and streamers that, when fired at the beginning of the concert, promptly got stuck on the metal frame of the stage and stayed there for the rest of the performance. Animation from the screens that covered the stage ranged from pretty to creepy, with skulls, a ram’s head and marching soldiers with neon pink Xs for eyes pulsing new colors in time to the beat. The finale blew confetti in the air, covering the crowd in white and blue confetti, perhaps for Israel’s colors.The Chainsmokers had played in Israel once before. This second concert at Live Park in Rishon LeZion was full of thousands of fans. Before they left the stage, they assured fans they would see them next year.
