Every year when Salon IKSV announce their season’s program, I inevitably find myself discovering a new artist I want to catch live and thus put into heavy rotation in the build-up to their performance. This year, Noga Erez caught me by surprise and featured prominently in playlists in the months leading up to her recent gigs at Salon IKSV on Friday 13 and Saturday 14 May. Despite my lack of prior exposure to Noga Erez, it’s safe to say her performance was a fun, energy-filled night and excellent showcase of her talents that even someone checking her out for the first time would have been swept up in. As I learned on the evening of my attendance, her Istanbul appearance was the first stop on a broader world tour, and one that is sure to earn her many new fans if this level of enthusiastic showmanship is maintained.
As is always the case with my Salon IKSV experiences, the concert kicked off promptly as promised, with a simmering crowd letting loose into cheer and applause as the lights shifted and the music came roaring out. Noga Erez stylishly came on stage on what at first glance seemed like a cow print matching top and bottom, but I later realized was a bit more in 90s abstract art style… regardless it was a cool outfit and vibed well as a first impression. As an opener, she went with YOU SO DONE which is among my immediate favorites of hers, as well as another of her popular songs whose name I never managed to pin down in my admittedly still new fandom. The lights glitching along side her, the breakdown of the songs were high energy and riled the crowd up to wonderful effect. It seemed nearly all in attendance were familiar with her hits at the very least.
Accompanying her on stage were two talented musicians largely on percussion duty and utilizing electronic synth-like machines to keep the crowd going. While a bit of online research seems to define Noga Erez as fluctuating between electro-pop and alternative indie, her music has always particularly felt hip-hop influenced to me and this was especially pronounced in some parts of the live show. The emphatic backing percussions of her crew behind her with their noticeably minimal set-up and just her general stage presence (and obviously often hip-hop style vocals) felt particularly familiar in this way and was a joy to behold. Freely floating across the stage with just a microphone and overwhelming coolness, Noga commanded the audience and each track felt like it was someone in the audience’s favorite based on each individual reception.
Prior to the concert, when suggesting Noga Erez to friends, I found myself comparing her to M.I.A. — a comparison that has probably been made many times and is also inaccurate for many reasons (but was the best I could conjure). Having seen her live now, I’ve drifted away from that comparison, as she exists in a space that’s distinctly her own. Her music is expansive and carries a wide scope, with sounds that are at times confrontational and heavy but also can very often be warm and inviting. As she poured through her set of songs that all felt familiar (a statement which also somehow included her new song), her unique presence was very much on display. The fact that it was a Friday night and that it was such a high-energy affair left me feeling somewhat disappointed that she wasn’t headlining some type of bigger event with warm-ups prior to the main act. She feels like she’d absolutely flourish in such an environment.
I left Salon IKSV feeling very content and cemented as a proper fan of Noga Erez. Despite going home for an early night in, it definitely felt as the vast majority of the audience was now hyped up and ready for a big adventure and proper night out. Coincidentally, the following night I happened to bump into some people while out and about in the late hours who had just attended her Saturday performance, and the consensus was the same. They had left her performance feeling uplifted and decided to make a night out of it. I imagine this will be one of many visits to Istanbul for this still relatively new artist, and I’m convinced she’ll continue to take bigger stages along the way.
Images courtesy of IKSV.
