-The first night there we went to see the Marlins beat the (poor) Mets in the bottom of the ninth on a wild pitch- oy. While we got free tickets, we were stunned to find that parking was free at the stadium! This was obviously a big deal for people ued to paying around $20 for parking at sporting events.

-There is an abundance of Kosher Krispy Kremes in South Florida and for those of you who don’t know: “Krispy Kreme is the official doughnut of Yaakov chesed” TM
-While were talking about food- After our show in Boca Saturday night we got to Miami at about 12:30 am and were very hungry. We randomly stopped at a CVS to get some nosh….and to our shock and delight there was a Kosher grill joint open next door!….Reading that back we realize that’s probably not that exciting to anyone reading this  and might not be worthy of the exclamation point, but we were very hungry, in a foreign land, and were resolved to cereal and milk. We hope you kind of see why we got as excited as we did.

-We were warned that the boys at WYSH could get a little wild, and even with that we were still a bit shocked with all the moshing, pile-ups, and by the mechitzah getting knocked over. But it was still a great show and huge thank you’s to Roni Rabb and Shira Englander for all their help (and to Rabbi Tershwell for letting us use his house). On a side note we must mention that the boys the Hebrew Academy in Miami were pretty awesome with their acrobatics.
-Michazzel still amazes us with his ability to fall asleep on any couch at any Shabbos meal in any state or country (he was 2 for 2 this time).

OK and now for the more important part:
-For one of our shows (a benefit bat mitzvah concert for ALYN Hospital) we had to play a bunch of new covers- Viva La Vida, Summer of 69, How to Save A Life, to name a few. They went over really well. We also played our ever popular “Sweet Home Yerushalayim” as well. We got to thinking ,and we are now discussing recording some “shlock” songs. We’re also working on an A Cappella track or two. We’d love to hear you feedback about this.
And don’t worry, we’re still writing original Jewish rock as well.

Friday was a load of fun as we had to dig out of heaps of snow and get to Elizabeth, NJ. Our manager, Yoni, got stuck in the snow for over an hour on route to YU to pick some of us up. Fortunately two very friendly Slovenian guys helped him push and dig his way out- but we love the way they approached him: “Hey there pal, could you use some aids?” Ummmmm, maybe?  You have to love broken immigrant English (not to put those guys down- they were awesome- and their English is a lot better than our Slovenian…..that’s a language right?). One we got out of the city and into Jersey the ride was fine and we actually had a lot of time to set up and rehearse on Friday.

Shabbos was a lot of fun, and the show Saturday night was going really well until we smelled some smoke….and then saw some smoke, this was of course followed by the smoke alarm, which really doesn’t go well with the chorus of “Shalom”. Somehow a cotton candy got on fire, and shortly after the gym we were playing in smelled like burnt sugar. The whole building had to be evacuated into the snow-filled parking lot. The fire department came shortly after and unfortunately about half the crowd decided to go home rather than wait out the situation in the cold. About 20 minutes later they did let us back in, and to the people who did end staying we send you a huge thank you. The fire certainly weeded out the non-fans and it was great playing for a group who knew all of out tunes. It actually turned out to be one of our best shows ever; we even played “Rise Above” for maybe the third time ever.

The next evening we found ourselves in Brooklyn playing for Ohr Naava (a girl’s seminary for high scholars and college students). This show was notable not only because Jake was dressed like a clown, but it was the first time we played for a crowd behind a mechitza. We really have no idea how many girls were there during a lot of the show or how into the music they were. We did hear a lot them saying “Woooooo!” which we assume is good. We just kept playing as if they thought we were the greatest band in the world and did not want us to stop. They did occasionally come up and make requests. Some wanted a lot of Sefardi music, to which Michazzel wisely said “Sorry, we’re Ashkenaz.” We actually did play two Sefardic tunes (we hope they like it). A bunch of girls also wanted the song “Yaakov Chesed”, to which we were more than happy to accommodate. We heard a lot of excited screaming during the song, and wondered what was going on- was it us? Actually….yes. Well sort of. It turns out a bunch of the girls did some sort of jump-rope routine set to the song- very cool! We love to see the video of that if anyone reading this has it. Ohr Naava turned out to be a really cool gig. We sort of felt like Stevie Wonder: we just played the songs, and even though we couldn’t see the crowd we could still feel their energy.

Six hours after we got home from Ohr Naava we had to head back to Jersey to play at Frisch. Sorry to be so anti-climactic, but there aren’t any interesting anecdotes to report on. It was the ninth or tenth time we’ve played the school, and we love going there. It was another high-energy show and by the end we all were ready to hibernate for the rest of winter.

We were scheduled to play an hour set opening up for Lipa= yes, THAT Lipa. Believe us, we thought it was an odd pairing too, but it actually worked out shockingly well, once all the band members actually showed up. The show was in Parsippany, NJ and was a good 80 minute drive for those of us coming from Long Island. Unfortunately our beloved drummer Mosky has been a bit under the weather (Refuah shelaymah!) so we had to use our awesome sub-drummer Elan (of Except Saturday). Elan lives in Borough Park, and actually had the shortest drive, and therefore should have been the first one there. Obviously that’s not what happened. There was a nice sized snow storm last week and Elan hadn’t gotten his car out. Unfortunately it had warmed up a bit on Friday, but got cold once again the following day. The result: Elan’s car was frozen over. Bad news for Yaakov Chesed. As there were 500 people at this gig we were quite nervous- playing without a drummer just wouldn’t work for this gig.  Ultimately, Elan had to take a cab to the show and, BH, literally arrived as the band was taking the stage. It doesn’t come closer that. Elan did a great job, we had an awesome show, and Ohr Naava booked us again for their Purim Chagigah this Thursday night. So everything, once again, worked out for us. We’re either very lucky, very blessed, or both.

We do want to mention one other bizarre moment from the show. We knew that this was going to be a very frum crowd and tried to steer clear of our English songs (which are of course Jewish themed) and our Shlock covers. We figured, why take the risk of offending anyone. We were sitting outside the ballroom selling CD’s and talking to a few fans when we suddenly hear “Bad Romance”…coming from inside the ballroom! Imagine our shock when we look in and sure enough, Lipa is covering Lady Gaga. That’s right: Lipa. Gaga. Wha-huh?! Most of the crowd seemed into it, though there were some people as shocked and confused as we were. The people who never heard of Lady Gaga thought Lipa wrote a new pop-niggun, and loved it! We should point out that he didn’t sing the chorus and changed the lyrics around. The ironic thing is that we actually discussed doing a Shlock version of that exact song during rehearsal, and thought it probably wasn’t the best idea. Show’s how much we know. We better start working on our cover of “Poker Face” before Avraham Fried beats us to it.

5. We’re looking for ideas for a tshirt- if you have a concept (or even a design) we’d love to hear/see some ideas. Just drop us an email

4. BH “The Passage” has been doing very well in America….and it will be out in Israel on Januray 17th!

3. “The Passage” will be out on iTunes by the end of the month.

2. After a little hiatus (See #1 as to why) we will be doing our first show together in almost 2 months at YU on Jan. 28th. It’s going to be YC “unplugged” and free- so defintely come by if you’re in the area.

1. Jake’s wife had an adorable baby girl named Shoshana! (That’s why we’ve take off for a little while.) We are really excited to have a new roadie join the YC team.