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Gogol Bordello - Photo by Carl Atiya Swanson
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The last time I saw Gogol Bordello was at the Fine Line Music Café, where the show was so packed that I spent a good third of it not touching the ground. This time, the beautiful evening outdoors in The Cabooze’s parking lot mellowed some of the spacing issues, but didn’t stop Gogol from playing for a solid two hours, reeling off numbers from 2005’ s Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike and 2007’s Super Taranta! These are highly charged songs, from the personal relationships of “Start Wearing Purple” to the social critiques of “American Wedding” and all the space in between, all the partying and global significance of earnest, organic fun—not an MTV Movie Awards-approved, pre-packaged good time. It’s wild and woolly, recalling the anarchist Emma Goldman’s dictum “I don’t want to be a part of your revolution if I can’t dance.”
The members of the collective that is Gogol Bordello come from all parts of the world, Ecuador, Russia, the U.S., the Ukraine and more. It is only fitting that they are based in New York City, described by Spalding Gray as “an island off the coast of America, somewhere between America and Europe.” They are wonderful to watch live, a gracious collective orchestrated by the impossible wiry, theatrical front-man Eugene Hutz. Everyone gets a chance to shine, and the players are all integral to the high-powered wandering tunes.
With all that in mind, The Cabooze might seem like a strange place to consider for a Gogol Bordello show. A country/rock biker bar strip? That sort of red-blooded American ism, on the surface, runs counter to the global intentions of Gogol Bordello. Not really so. There is at its heart, a yearning for freedom, for a cooperation based in shared ideals. David Allen Coe, a hold-over from the outlaw country movement of Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson played next door, and all of those guys can get behind Hutz’ lament/celebration, “Alcohol.” The not so affectionately nicknamed “Crack Stacks” that house so many of the immigrant Somali population on the West Bank glistened in the sunset. If there is any place to play global country music, this would be it, not the dark, insulated environs of First Avenue.
In a late night conversation with Nick Urata of DeVotchKa, talk turned to Hutz. The two bands had toured together several years ago, and Urata was obviously a fan of Gogol Bordello. He also said that he loved talking to Hutz, that the madman persona cultivated by Gogol Bordello’s frenetic live shows should not undercut Hutz’s calculating, far-ranging intelligence. It takes a lot of smarts and a lot of energy to advocate for revolution through joy, knowing that more people might show up more for the party than the politics.
Location Info:
Cabooze
Artist Info: Gogol Bordello
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