Gogol Bordello played Terminal 5, photos
There’s an intoxicating brand of punk that originates from the depth of folk, and that has so far been of brilliance specific to Slavic boisterousness. New York’s immigrant phenomenon Gogol Bordello isn’t quite the prime model of this, but to the band’s biggest advantage is the history that runs through the blood of its core. With chaotic globalization in full swing, one culture’s aged tradition is now a crazed discovery in some other, and everyone can be sure that New York will get at least a sip of it all. My Eastern European friends are outraged that their punks should now be models for “hipsters”, but we might as well ready for the world that will quickly run out of secrets. To our horror, something fantastically new will have to develop rapidly to pacify our ever-increasing curiosity, but to our relief, with every generation there is a change of context, and the old finds a place amongst the new. In Gogol Bordello’s unintelligible punk, the gypsy has found something new, and vice versa.
Continued, and more photos, after the jump.
Gogol Bordello has been playing New York every now and then, selling out in advance without a fail. Despite the readiness, I was unreasonably surprised at this all-age show at Terminal 5 to see American kids as young as 14-18 desperately in love with the chaotic Ukrainian Eugene Hutz and his vibrant band. There wasn’t a single English word he uttered that I understood (other than the lyrics I was familiar with), but to everything he said there was an approving cheer - and why not, music and the intention to have fun should be expected to surpass the thickest of borders, and it was to this intention the band and its audience were committed (besides, a band like Gogol Bordello can form only in a city like New York). In any case, to see the packed venue jump to the violence of a fiddle, an accordion, clashing cymbals and a thudding bass drum can never fail to be a remarkable sight. Given the enthusiasm, it’s unfortunate that many venues are inaccessible to the younger audience, but perhaps their energy is almost overbearing for small places like Mercury Lounge. The front was mostly packed with these younger fans, and I had the advantage of noticing quite a few of them pulled out to safety by the security several times following crowd surfing. One boy in an orange shirt popped out to the front about seven times between short intervals, and another, bearing bruises and all, well over a dozen times. Between claps and jumps, those in the front spent half their time ducking.
Adding a great deal of interest to the performance were the two female members that sing, dance and drum. For one of them, Elizabeth Sun, it was mainly a matter of performance, and the forms her body and faces took were very intentional, looking often like a Hindu goddess effusing rage. The other, Thai-American drummer Pamela Racine, pictured below holding a bass drum (and seated a few rows ahead of me with Elijah Wood during Regina Spektor at Town Hall), was quite a natural. She raised her legs as if she might have also tilled the land, and her understanding of the “Gogol Bordello Objective” seemed much more complete. I am sure the difference in the degrees of this understanding showed not only in her decision to wear a head scarf while the other sported a hat in one of the costume sets, but also in the wild movements that were masculine rather than wicked or exotic. Eugene Hutz, on the other hand, decided to wear a flowing wig for a brief period, trading his sneakers for a bright red pair of heels - an impressive pick for his yellow athletic socks!
November 4th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
That is one rad report there. The Girls Of Gogol Bordello are truely amazing…the whole group actully is truely amazing. There was an interview done with the girls and amazingly they are hardly noticed for the stuff they do. Pamela and Elizabeth…are really awsome girls when you talk to them.
This band has some much energry and they show a true passions to what they do. Evene learning about Gogol’s History and stuff is something you should check out…again, tight report, I really liked it.
Panda
November 5th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Were you seriously at this show? It’s an incredibly robotic review in response to what was an incredibly generous performance. They are tireless and savage and beautiful, and as a second generation Eastern European myself, the only thing I feel is immensely proud. Gogol Bordello embodies the anti-establishment that punk rock, in general, exists for. Kids aren’t just responding to the sexy Hutz, tho they might think so–there is message to their methods. And kids like me, 36 years old, and kids like my father, 65, respond to the authentic raucous spirit that is at once Romany–transcending logic and method–and punk rock. It’s dismaying to read this kind of stilted prose that includes Gogol Bordello as a subject. I hope at some point, you get to have a true Gogol Bordello experience. Put your notebook down. Join us down here in the pit. The view, the experience, all the heated inspired bodies will have you reeling.
November 7th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Nice, I’m glad you have supplemented the post with your own experience, and you have done such a great job of it too! But you see, it is effective and truthful because it’s your voice, and I cannot pretend to speak for “kids like you” because such a task would be impossible and fraudulent. So I leave it to the photos to convey what I cannot with words, a summation of several people’s experiences, a variety of people at that, the general outcome of the night, the energies that met and exploded and evolved - instead of the specific. But what makes it all the more colorful is when you post your specific experience, in the light of your specific history.
Also the problem is, I don’t believe I will ever have the Gogol Bordello experience you are describing without having been you, without having to my advantage all the events that have led to the present point of your life, without having heard everything else you might have - which is why I find textural reviews of music problematic, and often futile.
Each musical experience is specific to each listener and and the musician, and I would never dare to claim, or imply, that my own personal experience of the night is the most interesting that I need to offer here on the blog, because, on the contrary, I find that aspect the least interesting. I got a satisfying Gogol Bordello experience, there are things the music does to you in every show, as it did in this one, but I just find it boring to make myself the prime participant of the event. I’d rather hint at the bruises the young boy bore, which I didn’t do with calculations, but I hinted nonetheless. So yes, the band and its audience sometime become subjects, as does my life and everything else, though I don’t mind it, since what is a subject at one time is not one at others.
Therefore! The only thing I do have to assert is that I was quite satisfied with my Gogol Bordello experience, and I seriously doubt it was any less “true” than yours.
November 7th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Adding more,
What has just struck me is that, in music and everything else, including nationhood, which is always a confusing thing to grasp, experiences are specific and collective, and at the same time they seem to be the thing that contains the ever elusive truth. What I mean is, the “true” Gogol Bordello experience cannot be the same for all, not even the band members themselves. Is that even possible? I realize I’m taking it quite literally now, but that night, or any other, the experience consisted of several separate truths, and they could not have been the same, hah! In the spirit of my boss, I ask, Am I Wrong?
November 14th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
No, not wrong. Fair enough. I read your article the day after the show; my response was coming from my own authentic enthusiasm. I do wonder: isn’t anything we experience and then write about, objective or not, our own personal experience? Yours just happened to come out the way it came out. And I just didn’t know how to read it…how to take it. I found your response to my response so passionate and engaging, and enjoyed reading it. I can get defensive about the band–in my own similarly passionate way–my GB live experiences have been vital and life-giving events for me. All to say, my apologies for in any way demeaning your experience, or implying it was “less true.” What I needed to do was to write my own piece–which I have now done in other forums–instead of criticizing yours; I apologize for acting too late in the spirit of punk rock–letting the people be the people in all our diversity, experience, and varying perspectives. I concede.
November 16th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
Hey Sarahana, Reasonable fact-based review. Too much emphasis on wigs and heels. The gentleman whose father came over from the old country had it correct, the show was transcendant. I grew up in a white-bread Midwestern town 60 years ago and Gogol Bordello knocked my dancing socks OFF. Quit intellectualizing the show,,,it just Rocked thanks and I WILL be back next time.