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Shpongle’s Live Band in The Negev Desert

Here’s a review of a fascinating show from November, sent in by our correspondent in Israel, Justin Jacobs.

Shpongle Live Band
Negev Desert, Israel
November 25

The sun rising over southern Israel’s sprawling Negev Desert paints the sky with bright oranges and reds and yellows, the light making the dry, rocky ground seem to glow. In a way, adding Shpongle to the dawn doesn’t seem so odd — if you’ve been up long enough to watch such a colorful, bold sunrise, chances are your mind is already in a place that Shpongle aims to take you: euphoric, buzzing, engulfed in sound.

Less than two hours south Israel’s hip, metropolitan center, Tel Aviv, Shpongle’s November 26 show, held at a middle-of-the-desert location undisclosed until that week, drew a few thousand from all over the country. Israel’s Moksha Project building a 24-hour festival of international DJ’s around Shpongle’s 3:30 am set only fanned the flames of one of the country’s most hyped shows of the year; that Shpongle’s show would be a rare, live band performance pushed the excitement over the edge.

Far from civilization, nature parties are nothing new in Israel. But by midnight, the mood of the few thousand who’d trekked to see Shpongle fell somewhere between chill-out hippie fest and an all out rave — by the time the band, led by Simon Posford and Raja Ram, took the stage under a dead-of-night blanket of gorgeous stars, it was time to get weird.

Those familiar with Shpongle’s Shpongletron Experience know Posford has a knack for the eccentric, but no stack of electronic LED screens could compare — as a live band, Shpongle’s warped and twisted, Middle Eastern-flared trance grooves exploded onstage, bolstered by neon-costumed dancers, a contortionist, a glowing tube-monster, a cast of demons (who battled Raja Ram), acrobats and a staggering light show, all anchored by Posford, dressed like a psychedelic Mad Hatter, on guitar. Joe Russo’s drums pounded; the sound of Raja Ram’s flute bounced around the stage.

Weird? Weird was an understatement.

The band was wildly tight while squirming through spaced-out, wormhole jams like “DMT,” “Invisible Man in a Fluorescent Suit” and “I Am You,” which devolved into an endless maze of electronic-noise firepower.

As the night bled into morning, the orange and yellow sunrise matched the neon stage, and for a while it seemed like Shpongle might go on playing into that day. By 5:30, the entire cast was onstage dancing, Posford still maintaining his grinning calm.

A lineup of DJs took over by 6 and played heavy-hitting trance and electro throughout the day; as the early sunset took over the desert by 4 that afternoon, some people had been dancing for 24 straight hours, trying to suck all the energy out of a weekend that left most in attendance utterly, and happily, in awe.