Image by Sara Habersmith
Gogol Bordello brings a motley crew of Michigan fans to the dance floor
March 3, 2008, at Royal Oak Music Theatre
By Amy Oprean
Published: March 5th, 2008 | 5:40pm
Watching Gogol Bordello perform from the balcony — or anywhere else that isn’t immediately in front of the group — is possible for exactly half a song. After that, the polka-meets-punk revelry that blasts out from the multitude of instruments becomes too danceable, too infectious, and too inviting to resist.
At least that seemed to be the sentiment inside the Royal Oak Music Theatre in Royal Oak, Michigan, as the band took the stage and the all-ages crowd of punks, immigrants, large drunk men, and women in brightly colored scarves left the drinks they had been drinking, or the jigs they had been dancing, to crowd tightly against the stage.
The opening they heard were the bold first lines of song “Ultimate,” a song with a solid Gogol Bordello-esque take on the world: “There were never any good old days — they are today, they are tomorrow.” The words were sung by Eugene Hutz, and as the violin and accordion melodies resonated and the song kicked into its faster, punk-rock second half, the crowd’s attention was first and foremost on the lanky, goofy-eyed frontman with an absurdly large mustache. The undisputed master of ceremonies, Hutz’s condition alternated between high energy and crazy-high energy, his gold medallions swinging throughout.
In “Supertheory of Supereverything,” a quasi-intellectual song disguised as a super-goofy polka, Hutz sang, “First time I had read the Bible, it had struck me as unwitty. I think it may started rumor that the Lord ain’t got no humor.” The crowd responded by both shouting the refrain and jumping up and down as a seemingly single unit.
Even more than jumping was the amount of crowd surfing, and there probably isn’t a band that encourages it more than Gogol Bordello — there was at least one band member at the very edge of the stage at any given time. During a particularly high point of “Think Locally, Fuck Globally,” for instance, back up singers and dancers Elizabeth Sun and Pamela Racine appeared with cymbals and a giant bass drum and proceeded to play them in the faces of those in the front row.
There also were some calm moments, such as the few times Hutz actually stopped to speak to the crowd. “This is for the Ukrainian population of Michigan,” he said, before the band began to play “Suddenly… (I Miss Carpaty),” a song with lyrics that switch from English to Ukrainian to Russian, telling the story of a necrophile. Hutz danced as Yuri Lemeshev’s accordion raced, and the crowd — perhaps in part from the in-house Ukrainians — escalated back to its frenzied state.
In fact, much of the performance resembled a guttural, impassioned tribute to almost everything — Besides lame wedding receptions, they are definitely against those. “Have you ever been to American wedding? Where’s the vodka? Where’s the marinated herring? Where’s the supply that’s gonna last three days?” Hutz sang during “American Wedding.”
The plea — that people should be partying harder and longer — seemed to apply to the situation in front of him as well. Hutz’s gypsy punks rode out the set past what felt like the normal ending time, to the fourth, fifth, and sixth songs of their encore; until everyone was drenched in sweat, until it felt like no more dancing could be done, or “Hey”s could be yelled. In the increasingly intense concert-hall floor, Gogol Bordello showed the crowd that it not only could go for more, but that it felt great when it did. In the last chants of the last song the band played, everyone was still with it.
“Love is a voice of a savage soul. This savage love is undestructable,” Hutz sang.
Gogol fans new and old — all still going strong — screamed back in agreement.
Issue #25
Comments
Please login to be able to comment on this article.
more