30,000 Fans, One Blackout: Idan Amedi’s Emotional Night at Yarkon Park

Before a sea of 30,000 fans, singer-songwriter Idan Amedi took the stage at Yarkon Park on Tuesday night, marking the first of two sold-out shows at the specially built amphitheater. But the emotional evening ended abruptly when a power outage cut the lights and sound during the final song.

Witnesses described confusion as the stage went dark mid-performance.

“Suddenly, in the middle of the song, the lights and sound just shut off, and people started running onto the stage,” said Shira, one of the concertgoers. “Amedi and his band bowed in the dark while he kept playing on his harmonica. He didn’t even finish his thanks, it was chaos.”

Despite the technical mishap, the concert carried a deeply personal tone. For the first time in his career performing at Yarkon Park, Amedi dedicated parts of the show to his fallen friends from the war. Holding flags in their memory, he performed “Remember Almost Everything,” the title track of his 2022 album, in honor of Gabriel Bloom, Akiva Yisinsky, Alexey Shmaklov, and Eliran Yeager.

“At nights like this, I sometimes still imagine they’re here,” Amedi told the crowd before moving to a piano placed among the audience to perform “The Pain of Warriors,” the song that first made him famous on Kokhav Nolad (Israel’s version of Idol).

Among the attendees were released hostages Itay Regev and Eli Sharabi, along with wounded veterans from the IDF Disabled Veterans Organization and the Brothers for Life foundation.

Amedi will return to Yarkon Park on September 11 for a second concert, billed as a tribute to Israel’s reservists.