A Look Back at Israel’s Concert History — and When the Big Acts Might Return

For decades, the world’s biggest musical acts brought their concert tours through Israel: Michael Jackson (1993), Madonna (2009), U2 (1997), Paul McCartney (2008), Tom Petty and Bob Dylan (1987), Pearl Jam (1995), Alanis Morissette (2000), Rihanna (2010 and 2013), and Rage Against the Machine (1997 and 2000). Less than three years ago, Israel was still hosting some of the biggest names in music. The summer of 2023 featured concerts by Guns N’ Roses, Disturbed and Robbie Williams. Bruno Mars was set to perform two shows at HaYarkon Park in Tel Aviv that year. He only played one show though, because the second was scheduled for the evening of Oct. 7, 2023.

Since then, the lineup of non-Israeli acts has dried up. Sure, there have been some performances since that day, but it’s nothing like it had been before. In May 2025, Art Garfunkel made a guest appearance and played four songs with Aviv Geffen at a festival in HaYarkon Park in front of an estimated 50,000 fans. Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead performed with Israeli rock singer Dudu Tassa at the Barby Club in Tel Aviv in 2024 and 2025. Smash Mouth played a pair of shows at the Barby Club in February of this year.

It’s been sparse. Lifelong concertgoers in Israel wonder when the major concert tours will start returning. But for now, they can only look back.

When performers like Deep Purple (2008) and Linkin Park (2010) came to Israel, it wasn’t always the first leg of the tour, or even the second. Most of the time, major acts come to Israel several years and multiple albums after their breakout hits. For concertgoers in Israel, the excitement begins when merely learning that their favorite performers will be coming to their tiny home country.

When Depeche Mode announced that they’d be playing at Ramat Gan Stadium in 2009, Yaara Segal described the feeling as “immense excitement.”

“I was very much an MTV girl, and Depeche Mode was definitely in my top ten,” Segal, a Middle East affairs geopolitical consultant, told The Journal. “I grew up with the magic of waiting for the next single and music video from my favorite artists. They were a big part of the soundtrack to my teenage years. Hearing them perform songs that had been part of so many important moments in my life was incredibly meaningful.” She said she’s still upset about missing Bon Jovi’s first visit in 2015.

Some major acts go decades between concerts in Israel. Elton John’s first concert was in 1979, and he didn’t return until 2010. Aerosmith came in 1994 during the “Get A Grip” Tour. Over 50,000 fans turned out when Aerosmith returned in 2017. Rapper 50 Cent went 16 years between performances.

Israeli guitarist Aviv Hadari remembers 2010 as one of his favorite concert seasons in his homeland. In May of that year, he saw Metallica in Ramat Gan Stadium. Four months later, he saw Ozzy Osbourne performing in HaYarkon Park.

Hadari remembers the buzz around Israel in the days leading up to those shows.

“Oh yeah, 2010 was f—ing awesome!” Hadari told The Journal. He runs a popular guitar clinic called Shred Factory in Los Angeles. “Ozzy didn’t come much, but it was very noticeable. The whole country was talking about it. And when Metallica came, it was another big, big, big deal.”

Comedian Mike Kroll, who made aliyah by way of Texas, told The Journal about one of the last major concert nights in Israel. On July 10, 2023, rock music fans in Israel had to make a choice: see The Offspring at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds, or see The Black Keys at the Live Park Amphitheater in Rishon LeZion. Kroll said it was “a tough decision” but went with The Offspring show.

YouTuber Matan Drori was also at The Offspring’s only Israel show, but told The Journal that he laments that his favorite band, Iron Maiden, has yet to return to Israel in more than 30 years. A 2020 Iron Maiden performance was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, he was grateful he could see The Offspring in a more intimate venue than most other major acts in Israel.

“Everybody was crowded in front of the stage — everybody wants to be in the front,” Drori, host of the GeekVerse Podcast, told The Journal. “It was a relatively small place — about 9,000 people. Most of the American bands that came to Israel were at big parks — and they’re great shows. But this one was small.”

Los Angeles-based rapper/producer Liat Freidberg has a massive list of concerts she went to in her native Israel; among them are Incubus (2007 and 2015), Maroon 5 (2022), and Justin Bieber (2011 and 2017). Though she was always grateful for the visits, she hopes that performers say something specific about being in Israel. Sure, it’s a common practice for bands to get an enthusiastic audience pop when they reference the minutia about the city they’re in. For Freidberg, she puts an extra premium on when it happens at a show in Israel — and that it’s not enough to just say, “Shalom, Israel!” When she saw Christina Aguilera in August 2023 at Live Park in Rishon LeZion, she left wishing Aguilera said more.

“She was great, it was a great show, but she didn’t say anything that showed and acknowledged really where she’s at,” Freidberg told The Journal. “It’s just about even knowing something about the culture, knowing something about Israel that is unique to Israel and pointing it out.”

So the question remains: what will it take to bring big name music performers back to Israel?

Segal, who worked at the Israel Consulate in Los Angeles from 2015-19, shared her analysis. “Israel has one of the most passionate audiences in the world, and when artists perform here, they’ll talk about the incredible energy of the crowd and the amazing food,” Segal said. “The challenge of bringing big international artists back to Israel is pretty unique right now. Since Oct. 7, the entire region has been unstable, and governments around the world have issued travel warnings for Israel and the Middle East. That naturally makes artists, their management, insurance companies and production teams think twice. On top of that, Israel faces boycott campaigns and organized pressure that no other country really deals with.

I think once a few big artists make that first move and have successful shows here, it’ll give others the confidence to do the same.”

Segal said that she hopes that more brave performers like Boy George will take a stand. In July, Boy George released a song, “We Will Dance Again” which calls out minimizers of the Oct. 7 attacks — particularly the brutality committed by Hamas terrorists on concert goers at the Nova Music Festival in Re’im.

“Releasing that song was a huge risk for him, and he’s already facing plenty of backlash because of it,” Segal said. “Acts like this give me hope that more artists will have the courage to speak up, return to the basics, and remember why music exists in the first place — to bring people together, to expand our humanity, not to limit it.”

Below is a list of notable concerts in Israel: