you go to a Gogol Bordello concert and decide to be in the front rows, skip the gym in the morning, come in sweat pants and just wish you have an imposing body, bigger than mine, or you will not survive. The energy level of the crowd is just higher than anything I have ever witnessed, and if Eugene Hütz wants to ‘Break the Spell’ (the title of a song of his new album ‘Trans-Continental Hustle’), he sure knows how to use his magic to bewitch the crowd,… these people would do anything to get closer and closer!
The crowd is one with him, following each of his move, jumping at each of his leap, shouting at each of his guitar riff, rising their fists at each of his rebellious call, like a huge extension of his body, moving in waves.
Last night, the Mayan theater was packed with devoted fans, exhibiting their striped yellow or purple ‘Gypsy punk revolution’ and ‘This mustache kills fascists’ tee-shirts. When Eugene Hütz came on stage around 9:45 pm, first alone, then joined little by little by all the musicians, he started with ‘illumination’ and its in-your-face lyrics: ‘Illuminating realization number one/You’re the only light there is/For yourself my friend/There’ll be no saviors any soon coming down’, a delivery that is not without reminding the Clash’s ‘Know your right’, whose front man is even mentioned in the lyrics of a new song ‘Trans-Continental Hustle’ with ’In my headphones is Bob Marley and Joe Strummer’.
As usual, it did not take long, after a few songs the charismatic Eugene removed his shirt and continued the show bare torso à la Iggy, holding to the crowd his red wine bottle and taking a sip at it without even stopping playing or dancing. May be the wine helps, but this guy is a real force of nature.
Just like their master, Gogol bordello fans are very fit, they surf the crowd and can jump for hours without any fatigue, but, for my part, making one with hundreds of people (much bigger than me for most of them), being body against body, swimming in the sweat for hours, and not touching the ground anymore for a while, can be exhausting and a little scary. So, after three songs, I decided to go a little in the back, where I found a nice spot, sitting on a barricade for the rest of the show, despite the overweight security guards telling me to step down several times.
This infectious jam bedazzles people, they don’t care of anything else anymore, and it means a lot that a music, originally based on Ukrainian rhythms, is embodied by Latino, Asian, black and white people at this level. Actually Gogol Bordello’s music has become a fusion of many origins and the new songs they performed (‘Pala Tute’, ‘My Companjera’, ‘Rebellious Love’, ‘Immigraniada’, ‘When Universes collide’, ‘Break the Spell’, ‘Trans-Continental Hustle’), which had no problem to fit in the show among the old ones, have certainly absorbed some South American beats, Eugene living now in Brazil.
The old standards, ‘Start wearing purple’ in particular, made the crowd jump up to the Mayan ceiling, as I thought the place was about to explode. Although time could not be apprehended anymore in this whirl of sounds and movements, the show lasted for more than 2 hours, without any halt between the songs, like a marathon of gypsy punk rhythms and bounces, the next tune being crazier than the previous one, and followed by two encores!
During the first encore which started with ‘Baro foro’ and continues with a medley of different other songs (‘Undestructable’ among others), there must have been hundreds of finishes, or what it seemed finishes, but like an endless Russian novel, the music resurrected itself and restarted for another round of devilish rhythms.
During the last encore, Eugene did a soulful acoustic version of ‘Alcohol’, a love song to the intoxicating drinks, an authentic moment calming down the circus act that has just happened.