Yoav @ Osheaga

His variety of musical influences makes him one of a kind

By: Dave Jaffer
Aug 1, 2011 - 12:00
See all articles by Dave J. »

You’ve got to hand it to YOAV—he’s been to Osheaga as a performer almost as many times as I have as an attendee. He played the first Osheaga –I’ll always call it Rainbowsheaga—way back when in 2006, crushed a sold-out gig at Osheaga in the City last year, and is back this year for more.

Dude should have a 514 number and an apartment on Lambert-Closse.

For his part, YOAV’s always happy to come back to Montreal. He still remembers the inaugural Osheaga fondly—despite the fact that he got jacked.

“I remember it well for several reasons,” he says. “First off, it was my first festival appearance of any kind, which made it memorable and my first experience of just hanging out backstage and meeting other performers, green as I was. I had a blast and [in] hindsight it's a pretty damn cool first festival to be involved with.”

“Secondly, that first festival experience was made all the more spicy by the fact that my beloved guitar was stolen the day of the show and I played it on someone else's borrowed instrument.”

Those among you shaking your fists in anger at the kinds of unscrupulous douchebags that besmirch our city in such ways can relax. The guitar was eventually recovered.

“I ended up finding her again on eBay and getting her back with the help of the Montreal police. Strange indeed—but it made for an intense performance.”

YOAV’s Osheaga performance promised to be strange and intense as well. Via this Tweet, I found out that he was tinkering with a new cover song. So I put the screws to him, and he sang like a canary.

“Alright, I'll spill it… which kind of forces me to play it,” he says. “I am toying with a mad YOAV-acoustic-DJ-mentalism version of Prodigy's “Out of Space.”

Good god, man, why?

“It's one of the first tunes that opened my mind up to electronic music, and I heard it again after many years and thought, ‘you know, I reckon I could make this happen with just my acoustic guitar and a few toys.’ I just figured out the groove today and it is hard to play, so I might need a few stiff shots of vodka onstage to get me into the headspace of giving it a go.”

Later on in our interview, YOAV invokes another performer’s name that I didn’t expect him to. Asked who he’s looking most forward to seeing at Osheaga, he surprises me by responding with none other than Mr. Marshall Mathers.

“I would really like to see Eminem. I know he doesn't perform much and probably won't perform much in the future, but his early shows were the stuff of legend.”

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