Awesome Concert!

Hey folks, hope all is well wherever you are. Man, an amazing concert tonight. Seriously. Let's see if I can remember the songs sung. Benny Friedman started off with Yosef Karduner's Shir Lamaalos, sang it very nicely. Next up was Elokai, not Dedi's, Dudu's. There were two more, but they obviously didn't leave too much of an impression, as I can't recall 'em. One was Yiddish, but a relatively quick one. Ohad then began to sing from the side, his Shalom Aleichem. Coming in, we knew his voice would not disappoint, the only question was how his stage personality would work. I'm happy to report that both were brilliant. Unlike a lot of singers Ohad seems to be happy to hit that homerun, going all out vocally several times a song. So after greeting us he sang a Chabad medley, starting off with the Rebbe's slow Tzama, doing a fast Niggun, and then finishing off with Hupp Cossack, Benny helping from the crowd. Up next was Lifnei Mi from his first album, and he sang the whole thing off the stage. Completing the first half was a Carlebach medley, featuring all the good stuff, including the new one, and as he said, a Bochur told him (at a 'Farbrengen')a couple years ago, did you hear the new Carlebach, and he thought he (Ohad) was drunk or something.

Let's see. the second half started off with Benny singing a slightly modified "Small Piece of Heaven", not as good as his uncle at HASC 17 years ago, but hey, he had MBD there. Ohad came back on with Chavivin, and then he and Benny dueted (is that a word?) Mi Yitain. They didn't really do any harmony, which is too bad, but oh well. Next up, if my memory serves correctly, was a Isreali medley, including my all time favorite Al Kol Aileh. About the only thing he missed there was Hatikva, which is just as well because we would have stoned him if he had sung it. Oh, and that wasn't necessarily official Chabad ideology, just my own belief system. Next up was Stop! Need I say more? You may have quibbles about the content, but it's still a really great song, especially, as I said, with Ohad going full blast. Pia Poscha followed, in honor of Nathaniel Litvin, a Chasan (full report on his Thursday wedding on, well, Thursday). A shout from the crowd (A Mishulovin, if you must know) prompted Gdolo Shiro, except that he only sang the first part of the song, which of course doesn't even mention those words.
He told a beautiful story, which I'm way too lazy to transcribe now, which launched into Tanya, everyone's favorite Avraham Fried song. An encore prompted him to go through snippets of songs in, bear with me, French, Yiddish, Hungarian, English, Hebrew, and Arabic, before he gave us all Verastich, which happens to be a really nice song, even if you don't like Gospel. Rabbi Feller asked for, and got, MBD's Moshiach, and then it was over.

But seriously, a great concert. OK, so this review may be a bit fawning, but he really was excellent. The audience was literally eating out of his hand. I've been to several A Fried concerts, and of course he's something special, but hey, so was Ohad.

All right then, you have your report, I'm off to sleep, after Chitas, Rambam, Maariv, Krias Shema, etc, so until next time, so long everybody!