By NATI GABBAYUpdated: JULY 13, 2015 10:49ISRAELI ROCK legends Mashina please the crowd at the Caesarea Amphitheater with some of their classic hits.(photo credit: ORIT PNINI)
Last week Channel 2’s The Red & Dvir Show featured Israeli rock legends Mashina as special guests. Red – the cantankerous puppet rock star who is stuck in the ‘60s – held a special tribute to the seminal rockers, who released their first album 30 years ago. Only things didn’t go smoothly. When Red started playing the Mashina hit “Touched the Sky,” it quickly morphed into U2’s similar sounding “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” And when Red started playing Mashina’s “Send me an Angel,” it quickly turned into The Police hit “Roxanne.”That dovetailed nicely with a joke my friends and shared as kids about Mashina – they were an Israeli version of U2, The Police, Madness and other ‘80s-centric artists.On Saturday night at the Caesarea Amphitheater, at a gala show called “The First 30 years,” I suddenly understood these local heroes differently: There is nothing more original and Israeli than Mashina. You can be influenced by 1,000 bands, but Mashina is Israeli culture in a nutshell. The night was awash in songs about Tel Aviv, about the beach, with a lot of guitars mixed with more ethnic sounds (and even some sousaphones here and there).Somewhere in the middle of the show, they brought up special guest Matti Caspi, another Israeli prototype, for some duets with Mashina’s lead singer, Yuval Banai.What could have been a night of ‘80s nostalgia turned into a triumphant concert that spoke directly about what it means to live and love in Israel.