Yuval Raphael positively sparkled in her first concert as headliner in the Wohl Amphitheater in Tel Aviv on Saturday, as she met her Israeli fans face to face.
Both the audience and the singer clearly enjoyed the event, with a large cohort of teen and tween fans – and a few oldsters here and there – on their feet most of the time, waving signs that professed their love for her. Raphael called back how much she loved them, too.
Looking lovely and sophisticated in a maroon minidress, she repeatedly thanked those who helped her, a complete unknown, win the Next Star for Eurovision Contest on Keshet 12 earlier this year. She went on to represent Israel at Eurovision in Basel in May, where she won the audience vote and came in second overall.
The same grace she showed on stage in Basel was evident in her polished performance this past Saturday night, which featured appearances by two guests: Netta Barzilai, the 2018 Eurovision winner, was quite a surprise; the other, Raphael’s boyfriend, singer Ido Malka, was no surprise, and the fans cheered both wildly.
The concert, in which she was accompanied for the first time by a band led by musical producer Amos Ben-David, showcased her vocal range and ease with all kinds of songs, mostly in Hebrew, with some in English. Most fit into the power-ballad category, which she has described as her sweet spot, but she showed she can belt as well as croon in some up-tempo rock tunes.
Whether she was singing about the pain of a break up or the delights of newfound romance, she radiated a core of strength and gratitude not only for being onstage, but for being alive, which reflected her experience as a survivor of the Supernova music festival massacre on October 7, when she hid in a bomb shelter for hours as Hamas terrorists attacked with bullets and grenades.
THE SHOW opened with clips from her initial interview for Next Star less than a year ago, and then she sang her Eurovision audition song, Demi Lovato’s “Anyone,” featuring the lyrics, “I feel stupid when I sing/Nobody’s listening to me/Nobody’s listening,” which she said in a recent interview resonated with her, because of her experience hiding in the bomb shelter.
But on Saturday night, she said, “This is the first time after singing that song, I say the sentence, ‘Nobody’s listening to me,’ but here there are so f***ing many people who came to listen to me!”
Raphael mixes new EP originals with familiar fan favorites
Among the songs she performed were three from her newly released EP, 22:22. According to a press release for the EP, “The album title, 22:22, carries a deeply personal and spiritual meaning for Yuval, a symbol that gained strength after October 7. She began noticing the numbers 22:22 appearing everywhere she looked. When she looked up their meaning in angel numbers, she discovered they mean ‘You are on the right path.’”
She relayed that the new song, “What’s Up with You,” reflected the difficulty she had initially after the Hamas massacre, when people asked her how she was doing. “Why don’t you spread your wings/How will you dance in your perfect world?” she sang, with the audience accompanying her.
Although the EP was released only last week, most of the crowd knew the words, and she was happy to hold out the microphone to them.
They also cheered for “Amber Skies,” the theme song for the HBO Max/Yes series One Day in October, about the October 7 massacre.
She went on to sing Adele’s “A Million Years Ago,” which she said, “Sort of throws me back to the version of myself I was before [October] 7; there’s nothing to be done, things have changed,” and gave a particularly heartfelt rendition of such lyrics as, “Life was a party to be thrown/But that was a million years ago/A million years ago.”
The Hamas mega-atrocity and the ensuing war were clearly never far from her mind, although the atmosphere was anything but gloomy. She made sure to pay tribute to those who did not survive, and spoke about her friend, Shaul Greenglick, a reserve soldier who auditioned in 2023 for Next Star in uniform and was killed shortly afterward during combat in Gaza. She sang his audition song, “Blind Bat” by Hanan Ben Ari.
When her boyfriend, singer Malka, a reservist in the Golani brigade who also auditioned for last year’s Next Star, came on stage, the crowd went wild as he and Raphael kissed. They sang several songs together, including the duet by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars, “Die with a Smile,” which features the words, “If the world was ending/I’d wanna be next to you.” Their recent experiences with war and death gave it a resonance beyond a simple pop tune.
Not long after Malka left the stage, a new guest arrived – Netta Barzilai, who graciously praised Raphael’s talent. The two sang several of Barzilai’s hits together, including “CEO,” with Raphael showing that she could rock out and radiate girl power.
Toward the end of the concert, Raphael performed ABBA’s “Dancing Queen,” which she sang in the mournful arrangement of the Next Star finals, dedicating it to those who didn’t make it home from the Supernova festival. This time, it was still sadder than the original, but a bit lighter and more hopeful.
When it was 22 minutes after 10 p.m., which in Israel is written as 22:22, her fans up front showed her the time on their phones, and she gushed at them for understanding what the number means to her. She then smiled as a cake and sparklers were brought on stage to celebrate her 25th birthday, which she will celebrate on November 5, as the audience sang “Happy Birthday.”
This concert, and her rapport with her superfans, showed that she is well on her way to becoming Israel’s Taylor Swift, radiating both strength and an essential sweetness that makes fans feel she knows them, and they know her.
When she sang her Eurovision song, “New Day Will Rise,” the crowd turned on their cellphone flashlights, many of them hugging. After the last note, they were willing to let her go, knowing that they would be seeing her again as soon as they could.