Eatliz at The Jerusalem Bass Club

Eatliz at The Jerusalem

By JACOB KANTER
rock band 88 generic (photo credit: )
rock band 88 generic
(photo credit: )
Eatliz The Bass Club Jerusalem November 30 Eatliz, one of Israel's better known indie bands, made the trek east last Monday from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem - for the first time "in a long time," according to lead singer Lee Triffon the Bass Club's "Indie Mondays." The band didn't look displaced outside of its Tel Aviv hub, although some differences were readily apparent. The speakers loudly crackled and popped early on, prompting bassist Hadar Green to declare, "Happy Independence Day, Jerusalem!" The stage was too small to accommodate guitarist Guy Ben Shetrit, who played on crowd level the entire night. And Triffon looked surprised and disappointed at the level of crowd participation when she extended the microphone towards the audience during the la di das of "Attractive," the music video which recently won Music Video of the Decade on Channel 24. But despite the setbacks, Eatliz gave the Jerusalemite crowd what it came to see - a tight, pulsating performance infused with the blood and sexuality that permeates the band's 2007 debut album, Violently Delicate. The alternatively sultry and ruthless "Bolsheviks" opened the set, with Triffon's silky voice sirening over the force of four electric guitars (one of them a bass), "silently soaking in a sudden heat wave… you're just an illusion made of my wet dreams." Many of the highlights were songs taken from the band's aptly-named EP Delicately Violent, released last month, including the bass-driven "Must Get Laid" and a less dreamy, more foreboding version of Bjork's "Army of Me," as well as a few promising selections from a second album to be released early next year. Eatliz avoided the middle of Violently Delicate - the source of most of the "delicate" - and instead focused on the violent, with "Attractive" serving as the lone invitation to sway side to side instead of bang front to back. But even though some of the softer tracks stayed back in Tel Aviv, Eatliz proved to find the balance that the titles of their releases would suggest they embody - violent yet delicate, restless and dreamy, warning but welcoming. The Jerusalem-based band Kitzu, more of a newcomer on the indie scene, opened the evening with a passionate performance, also juxtaposing waves of dense sound with moments of near silence, although it has some work to do to reach Eatliz's heights. But overall, with this powerful double set, the Bass proved, as it does every Monday, that Israel's indie community is alive and kicking, in Jerusalem as well as in Tel Aviv.