THE STORY OF OUR TRIP TO ISRAEL
The Britannia Bluegrass Band in Israel
It all began last July at the breakfast table at our B&B in Conwy, North Wales. We (The Britannia Bluegrass Band) were playing at the North Wales Bluegrass Festival and Menachem and Yehudit Vinegrad, from Israel, were holidaying in the UK and taking in the festival. We saw them a couple of times around the festival and again next morning at breakfast and when we were chatting in the bar after one of our concerts Menachem said, "We organise a folk festival on the shores of Lake Galilee. Would you fancy playing at that?" We said "that sounds great." Then, after a pleasant chat about things musical, we went our different ways, and to be honest, we didn't really expect anything to come of it.
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Menachem and Yehudit super-cool organisers
he bombshell came a couple of months later when I got a phone call from Menachem asking us to play at the 'Jacob's Ladder Folk Festival' in Nof Ginosar on the shores of Lake Kinnerat (Galilee) next April. We thought about it a lot because over here in the UK we only hear the worst side of the political situation. We were a bit worried as the Foreign Office advised against travel to some parts of Israel. However the area we were going to was not included in these warnings. Discussions with Menachem made us feel that both he and the Jacob's Ladder Festival were very much part of the peace movement and we all decided that if we were to give in to the terrorists' activity and stay at home then they had won!
Months of preparation followed with many emails from Menachem, from Lynn and Judi Lewis, who we stayed with, from Josh Goodman who loaned me a double bass (the one instrument we felt we couldn't get on to a plane), and eventually a phone interview with Barry Davis, a reporter with the Jerusalem Post. We were all set up to arrive at Tel Aviv airport in the early hours of Wednesday morning, play at the Tzora Folk club, stayp at the Tzora kibbutz for a couple of days before moving on to Nof Ginosar for the festival itself.
We left the pouring rain of Manchester and with surprisingly little security arrived at Heathrow at 9:30 p.m. to find that all the shops and cafes had closed and there was not even a machine from which we could get a drink while we waited an hour for our flight to Tel Aviv.
We were collected at 5 a.m. by Lynn Lewis who drove us to the Tzora kibbutz where we had breakfast in the kibbutz dining room and then went off to bed for a few hours. The afternoon was spent checking out the double bass I’d borrowed. It was made of steel and sounded like an old tin bath if you knocked it but it sounded very good and loud when it was played. The action was a bit too high and we got permission from the owner to lower it and we had great fun trying to reset the sound post with a bent coat hanger and a piece of string. Anyway, after all our work it sounded and played great and we were ready for the evening when we booked to play at the Tzora folk club.
We had a great evening. Lynn and Judi, who were promoting their new CD "While The Night Goes By", did the first half. We did the second and then we finished the evening jamming with a few Israeli musicians who had brought their instruments. The crowd was really friendly and when we were introduced to Sherry, who was going to show us round Jerusalem on Sunday, of course we had to sing "Walking in Jerusalem" for her.
Lynn and Judi are well known on the Israeli music scene singing a lovely blend of folk, country and bluegrass music. They emigrated to Israel in the seventies and before then Lynn had sung and played in a number of bluegrass bands on the London scene, including the Southern Ramblers.
On Friday the big day arrived and we moved on to Nof Ginosar, which is a hotel on the beautiful shores of Lake Galilee. In the afternoon we played a few impromptu sessions in the hotel bars and made lots of new Israeli friends, many of whom had emigrated from places in the UK including Liverpool and Southport. After singing "Walking in Jerusalem" again for some ladies from Jerusalem we were ready for our first concert.
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On the main stage
he main stage was in a beautiful wooded area and held an audience of about 1,000 most of the bands were Israeli but played all sorts of music including Irish, folk rock, world music and electric blues. We appeared late in the evening after Orin Starr a brilliant American singer / guitarist / mandolin player. He was the only other overseas act apart from ourselves among the 30 or so acts appearing over the weekend. We felt really at home among such a friendly audience, particularly after a shout of 'scousers' from one section of the audience.
After winding down in the bar with a few pints there was another session in the hotel bar and then in the early hours of the morning we finally staggered to bed exhausted. We had had a wonderful day and so many people wanted to talk to us and thank us for the music and also just for coming to Israel.
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Pat on stage with Orin, Lynn and a young Israeli banjo player
Relaxing with Orin Starr
aturday was more of the same with another concert in the morning on the main stage. We chatted to Orin Starr - such nice unassuming guy for a big American star. We then finished our work with a 'meet the band' session with a couple of hundred people in the hotel bar. We sang and chatted for an hour and a half. We weren't sure what to expect but it was all so relaxed. We did requests, we answered questions like "How come you are English but play American music?" , "Did you know the Beatles?". When someone asked us to do something typically Manchester we sang the Osborne Brothers song "Listening To the Rain". Betty and Shelley, a couple of girls from the all girl folk rock band 'She-Rock', had asked us if we could do something together on the main stage. Unfortunately the sound man could not set it up so we took the opportunity of this less formal concert to drag them on stage with us to sing "Blue Moon of Kentucky". After this it was down to the main stage to see Orin Starr's final set and then lots of goodbyes from all our new friends before we went back to Tzora and bed.
Menachem and Yehudit had done a marvellous job organising a festival for over 3,000 people so efficiently, while remaining so calm and so friendly throughout. I hope that one day we will be able to make it back either as players or just visitors.
Our final day, Sunday, rather than being an anticlimax, was yet another unforgettable day. Sherry, who we had met at the folk club on our first night, had arranged to take us into Jerusalem. She was such a lovely, bubbly personality and she was a professional archaeologist so we could not have had anyone better to take us around an ancient city like Jerusalem. As we got our first view of Jerusalem, Sherry pulled off the road and said "There's a tradition I'd like to share with you" and she went to the boot of the car and got out a bottle of wine, five glasses and a loaf of bread so that
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Sherry, archaeologist and bluegrass fan
olorosa, the Wailing Wall and all the tourist sites. There were also a few little extras like some tombs in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which are hidden away in a chapel in the bedrock behind the traditional tomb of Jesus, which we had to see by candle light.
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Barry turns archaeologist
erusalem is such a beautiful city it seemed incongruous to see security guards wandering around with rifles. Particularly since most of these seemed to be young girls. On our way back from Jerusalem we had another surprise when Sherry pulled off the road to show us a small ruined building with a sand floor. She brushed away the sand to reveal a spectacular 2.000year old mosaic floor which was virtually intact. That evening we finished our trip with a nice meal in a local restaurant and then it was off to Tel Aviv airport for 5:00 a.m. the next morning. I fell asleep as soon as we sat down on the plane and didn't even notice us taking off and I'm still recovering from a most memorable experience.
Pete Mackie (The Britannia Bluegrass Band)