On the road again (for the first time)

Five days is apparently the longest a musician from Tel Aviv can spend away from home. There is still a romantic idea of being "on tour," including long journeys, the intensity of life together on the road, dealing with the unexpected and the pleasure of surprises.

Though road tours don't really exist in a small country like ours, where one can just return to Tel Aviv after a show, Shahar Even Tzur is still giving it a shot with his first kibbutz tour. Free shows were scheduled at pubs on kibbutzim, in exchange for food and lodging for Even Tzur and his band the Ma'apilim (the term for illegal Jewish immigrants).

A bus is rented by the tour's airline sponsor. The equipment's loaded. Excitement is in the air, and we're on our way.

At each stop, kibbutz members will recall the late singer Meir Ariel's Election Tour, a round of free appearances conducted by the singer in 1987, from Dan in the north to Eilat in the south. That year Ariel was accompanied by Yehuda Adar, Miki Shaviv, Rea Mochiach, (only 17 back then) and Yoav Kuttner.

Even Tzur's group is slightly larger. On drums is Shai Baruch (who has played with him for six years and for about the same amount of time with Eran Tzur), on guitar Yahel Doron (of the Revel Day band), on bass Yonatan Levital (of O line), on guitar and also singing, Tamar Capsuto, on violin Nili Fink (who's just finished recording her debut album) and on oud and bouzouki Sefi Asfuri (of Gaya).

Halfway through the tour Baruch will be replaced by Ran Jacobowitz (of Jet Sam, Yarona Caspi) and Maya Hofree, Even Tzur's manager, will join in. Every now and then familiar faces will pop in, but the rule is that the minute the bus driver steps on the gas, the old bunch will be left behind.

The wheels on the bus go round and round

"You're a genius, really talented," singer and television host Orna Datz says to Even Tzur from behind her huge sunglasses. They are standing outside the Herzliya studio of Music 24, the Israeli music television channel, in the group's few remaining minutes in the Dan area before moving north.

Even Tzur practices smiling. During the broadcast Datz doesn't hesitate to dance with him to the single "Pretty Woman" from his new album, Magen David Square.

While the bus crawls along in traffic jams on the Wadi Ara road, Israeli folk music alternates with covers of Beatle songs and more that Levital improvises on an acoustic guitar.

Meanwhile the group delightedly discovers a cooler loaded with fruit which Even Tzur purchased that morning. Just as the evening begins to grow dark, the bus enters Kibbutz Afikim, and equipment is unloaded at Doris bar.

It is located just past the cow shed, decorated with piles of hay and an odor to match. The staff waits inside, with packs of Israeli brand (Noblesse) cigarettes, and the extremely tall sound man, who looks like an anorexic Jimmy Hendrix, begins to connect the equipment at the pace of someone with all the time in the world on his hands. Beers are poured.

While the Ma'apilim orient themselves with grilling families and kittens to pet nearby, the audience begins to arrive at Doris. Even Tzur does a few voice exercises between the pub and the barn and the show gets underway. The atmosphere warms up with nerve-wracking slowness until Even Tzur calls to the audience to "beat the potato chips" layed out on the tables.

By the encore, which traditionally includes "Naked," Even Tzur's hit from his first solo album, everyone is on their feet.

A little more than an hour later, Doron is drumming song requests - Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd - and the group swoons right onto one of the wooden tables. Everything goes like it was meant to, almost like deja vu.

No such thing as a free show

It's 36 degrees Celsius, giving the road sign, "The Jordan Valley: A Quality of Life" new meaning. Kobi Hatav, a broadcaster on an educational radio station, Voice of the Kinneret (FM 106), takes us into the station's offices in a basement of the Jordan Valley Academic College.

Hatav, it becomes clear, is a serious fan of Even Tzur: He knows all the words, danced at Doris and will dance again at the show in Ein Gev in three days. He's please with Even Tzur's spontaneity during the broadcast. At the end they record a station promo, are photographed in the moldy hallway and go onward, to a minor catastrophe at Kibbutz Amir, near Kiryat Shmona.

You can bet that the group won't soon forget their visit to Karpion. The pub, wedged between a bed-and-breakfast and a temporary army structure, looked promising until the band learned the owner insisted on collecting NIS 25 at the door to cover the costs of the soundman (whose Machina 2004 T-shirt reveals his musical tastes) and the security guard (whose presence was not detected), despite the fact that the show was advertised as free.

The owner promised to treat the audience to beer, but failed in this matter too. Even Tzur got angry. It wasn't what was planned. He thinks that people will stay outside when they discover they have to pay.

The owner throws Dor, the high school student who organized the appearance, under the bus. Dor blames the owner, who turns to Even Tzur, who just wants to play and get the whole thing over with.

The 10th time someone in the audience shouts out a request for the song "Makka Afora" ("Gray Bruise") by Monica Sex, Even Tzur starts getting angry, partly due to an honest case of nerves and partly because of the stand-up routine which he has repeated dozens of times since he set out on his solo career after leaving Monica Sex.

"The rule is that I don't sing Yali Sobol songs. I only sing songs that I have written," he says somewhere between a laugh and a shout. "Life really isn't easy. That neighborhood in south Tel Aviv is passe?!" he says, refering to the TV show "Florentine," which Sobol sang the theme song for, and leaves the stage.

A young woman in the audience asks shamelessly for the band to play Berry Sakharof's "Yomhuledet" (Birthday). The instrumental version pleases the crowd.

The next morning, a breeze rustles the treetops, lifting dust from the paths. Students pass by on their way to the kibbutz boarding school. The silence near the barbed wire fence marking the edge of the community is near total.

The lonely feeling is disturbed by Gur, a high school student, who throws his bicycle down in the grass and approaches to ask how they feel.

Even Tzur arranges for the group to leave a day earlier for the next stop, Ein Gev. Until the driver arrives with the bus, Baruch tells them that he once worked in Bank Leumi. Even Tzur, it turns out, was trained as a dental technician. Fink makes her living at a Blockbuster store.

Fishing for a joke

Two days at Ein Gev on the shore of Lake Kinneret improves the band member's moods tremendously. On Wednesday afternoon they arrive at Emek Yezreel College, once again as guests of the student radio station.

Broadcaster Nadav Roseman reads his text from a printout in highbrow language, nearly driving Even Tzur out of his mind.

Everyone will be happy to meet up with Kobi Hatav again at the Ein Gev pub, Copenhagen. There are two soundmen, both named Guy, with curly hair and side burns. Aside from these similarities, they are completely different from one another. Between songs, Even Tzur talks about a partially failed attempt at night fishing with Asfuri and Doron. The inspector, all smiles, stands up and announces that Israeli rock history is being made, because he is going to fine them during the show for fishing with a net.

Never mind that Even Tzur lengthily detailed the fishing rod they had purchased. The inspector kept going on even after the show, in a voice that couldn't hide his clerical past, joking at his own expense.

No one could have staged the final chord of the tour better than reality did. The noise of drills reached us as we entered the nameless pub at Ein Carmel, where the owner and one technician worked to finish the wiring. A balcony shaded by palms and a pool table decorated the entrance to what could only be called a shed. Even Tzur's voice, cracked from the previous day, had broken down completely, and he stuffed himself with all sorts of drugs that were supposed to help.

While the band tried to deal with the bare-chested and tattooed soundman, who seemed to have the most rudimentary understanding of the profession, Even Tzur put his head over a kettle and under a towel in an effort to steam away his hoarseness. At the same time exactly, the electricity failed.

Darkness. Light. And then darkness again. Patience threatened to go the way of he electricity. Power returned.

Two Thai men arriving early seated themselves at the bar. They drank, smoked, smiled. The audience gathered but did not react at all to the band, which made a great effort to overcome the terrible sound. The owner was not upset, and did not stop smiling for a second. For a few drawn-out minutes, he tried to understand why Even Tzur could not hear himself, until it turned out that the monitor had not been plugged in.

Eventually, they left the shed. Even Tzur, mildly despairing, suggested that they go back to dance. And then it happened. A wreck of a show turned into a party. Even Tzur returned to the drums, playing a bit of background music until the band played their last two songs: "Hard Rain" and "Naked."

The audience remembered that not only the regulars were in attendance, and one of the Thai men played on Even Tzur's bongos.

In January Even Tzur is planning another tour in the south. Get your sandals ready.