Ari and I went to see Matisyahu during Channukah for the second straight year. The opener was a supposedly well known Reggae band The Whalers, who played mostly covers of groups I didn't know but songs I recognized, which made them entertaining The Wailers, who were Bob Marley's original band - it turns out we recognized most of what they played, which made it really easy to get into (I just learned this after writing the original post). Matisyahu himself was great - he's an engaging performer, and its amazing to watch Jews & non-Jews a like get immersed into his music, which is all heavily religious. He jumped around the stage despite walking with a cane due to injury, he brought out guest performers (that I didn't recognize), and he lit brought audience members on stage to light the Menorah. We met some Israelis, and then a Venezuelan kid who supposedly came to New York from Venezuela for the show (he spoke fractured English so we didn't quite connect on everything), an amazing fact. One ridiculous thing - at the end of the show a security guard grabbed his camera and took out his memory card, screaming at him, claiming that he was video taping, which was heavily illegal. The security guard walked right by myself and numerous other audience members who were doing the same thing, with possibly less impressive cameras (he later talked to another guard, who got his card back unharmed). The videos I took don't do justice to the performance Matisyahu put on - check him out yourself, and if you want an album my recommendation is Live at Stubs. Also his single on the following album, Jerusalem, is great (listen below). There are also a few pretty interesting videos of Chassidic dancing by Matisyahu and others that was done on stage.
