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Gig review at EganuAvigail Cohen - Live at the Yeoshua Bar"Last night (Monday, 10th March 2008) I saw (heard) Avigail Cohen performing live at the Yeoshua bar in Tel Aviv.It was the first time I'd set foot in the place even though I've noticed that it's become quite a popular choice for bands looking for small, intimate stages for their gigs. It's definitely small. The crowd has to squeeze their way between the barstools and the walls, knocking things over and getting elbowed (before the "anti-smoking" law, cigarette burns would be included here) while the bartenders roam lavishly in a very spacious and ergonomically designed bar area. I guess it all adds to the charm of the place.The stage is triangular and accordingly tiny, but if it could fit Avigail and her four-piece band then I guess it does the trick.Unfortunately I got to this one late. Well @$% me for forgetting that the Yeoshua and the Yermiyahu are not the same place! They're both in the same street! They're both prophets (I think)! That can be confusing. That's what you get when you blend Biblical figures and Tel Aviv nightlife. I mean what's with the names they're giving joints in Tel Aviv these days? They're becoming so characterless it's hard to tell them apart:" Hey, so you coming to the Johnson tonight?""NO, we're sick of that place. Come to Jackson's. Shit's going down man.""Oh yeah? Keren wanted to go there but she's working at Jefferson's tonight.""Ahhh, Jefferson's. Actually I've been hearing good things about Julian's but Johnson and Jackson's are closest…"Etc, etc, etc.Nuff bull. I'm not trying to be negative about the place. I had a good time and any drinking institution that offers live music almost every night is automatically in my good books. As I said, I missed a few numbers but still managed to catch most of the show. The band was great. Good sound, solid musicians. I really enjoyed the song called "Nifla". It's this, cabaret-style song which takes you back to vinyl recordings and black and white movies and at the same time has a feministic, cynical twist to it. It's not an easy number to pull off but Avigail really seems to relish in the place where the music meets the role-play. You can tell when a song moves the singer, the band and the crowd. And this was it.Besides "Nifla" were other more contemporary songs which I thought were really well-written and catchy (in a good way) as well as some slow numbers. She really likes those too. Here she plays delicately with the vocals. But again, it's not so much the singing alone but the fact that Avigail really absorbs herself into the character that sings the "story" of each song. A lot of performers (amateurs and even fairly successful ones) find it hard to reflect feeling through their faces but this was not the case. The quieter songs as well as the more theatrical ones give her space to express herself and that's what every audience is looking for." TMUNA THEATRE 24/3: For the "Tmuna" theatre reviewPlease Click Here