Gogol Bordello

Academy, Manchester - 30 Mar 2008

by Pete Charles

When in Romany, watch this band

"Gogol Bordello simply don’t have bad songs, just good ones and better ones"

Picture gregor_y

Eugene Hutz, moustachioed frontman of self-labelled gypsy punks Gogol Bordello, is semi-naked, sweating profusely and quaffing from a bottle of wine. To be fair, if you’re a gypsy, you probably do this anyway, but instead of sitting around a campfire playing folk songs while your mangy hounds rifle in the trash, Gogol Bordello are playing to a virtually sold out audience at Manchester Academy.

New Noise is late, but has no trouble manoeuvring to front of house, since there is no impenetrable crush holding forcing us back; it is more akin to a huge party attended by the most eclectic audience you’re likely to see all year.

We enter halfway through ‘Supertheory of Supereverything’ and, sounding like something you’d hear at a Russian wedding, it turns everyone into drunken Cossack dancers for the next three minutes. ‘Tribal Connection’ gives everyone a chance to get their breath back - the chorus emphasises the band's mantra of “think locally, fuck globally”, prompting a tuneful sing-along: “No can do this / No can do that / What the hell can you do, my friend / In this place that you call your town?”

Silver-haired (and bearded) violinist, Sergey Ryabtsev looks like your cool granddad and is as much of a celebrity as Hutz these days. He smiles broadly yet modestly at the cries of “Sergey! Sergey!” in between songs, and we could even swear we hear a couple of teenage girls furtively confirming that they “would”. Respect.

‘Wonderlust King’ is probably the song that best defines the band’s traveller ethic. Hutz sings: “I travelled the world / Looking for understanding / Of the times that we live in / Hunting and gathering first hand information / Challenging definitions of sin”. Although it’s one of the best tracks off their last album ‘Super Taranta!’, Gogol Bordello simply don’t have bad songs, just good ones and better ones.

After a ten minute intermission, Hutz returns on his own to perform a new song before being joined by Sergey and wielding the necessary props for a rendition of ‘Alcohol’. A drunken, exhausted crowd is by now noticeably less mobile, but all it takes are the alluring, yet commanding stares of the impossibly sexy percussionists/dancers Pamela and Elizabeth and a superb rendition of ‘Start Wearing Purple’ for the Academy faithful to raise the roof again. The show ends with the entire band racing to opposite ends of the stage and playing a few bars solely for the people gathered there, and as people of all ages, colours and musical backgrounds raise their arms to applaud a momentous two hour set, all eight members approach the barrier, high-fiving as many people as possibly and looking genuinely thrilled to be there, and for the first time that evening, these eight showmen and women finally let their guard down and literally beam with joy.

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