7 posts tagged “gogol bordello”

Took this at Get Loaded in the Park yesterday. It's been a while since Mosh and I went to a music festival. The desire to spend hours getting to and from a glorified field, queue for chemical toilets and listen (coz you rarely get to see anything when you are my height) to bands you love for half an hour sounding shit because it's too windy for the sound system has strangely worn off.
But this was Clapham Common a mere 20 mins walk/bolt home and there were some good bands playing so we thought we'd give it a go.
There were times I loved it (down at the front jumping up and down to the fab as ever Gogol Bordello) but there were also times when I hated it.
The queues, the shit food, the warm drink, the scrum for the loos, the way you didn't stand a chance of enjoying the music unless you were somewhere near the stage but as the day wore on, down the front attracted more and more pissed up twats who's idea of a good time was to push each other around and jump on each other so that you were half watching the band and half watching to see if an elbow was coming towards your head.
And no one told me you had to go in fancy dress, I haven't seen such efforts since the Oakham Guide and Scout Carnival 1982. It's a shame my camera battery died.
Still I was brought back to Clapham with a bump when someone threw a tartan picnic blanket on the stage during Supergrass.
And it was only a 20 minute walk home.
A few more pics at www.flickr.com/photos/revstan

Had tickets to see Gogol Bordello on Saturday, this time at the much bigger Hammersmith Apollo. After everything that has happened in the last 10 days I really needed to have a few drinks and jump around stupidly to some loud music. So Gogol Bordello was perfect tonic.
It was a great gig but the bigger venue didn't work as well. The crowd were not as animated as when we saw them in Camden and there was no crowd surfing this time.
Still I got into the spirit of the music and enjoyed myself. Took my camera which Mosh and I shared but it was really difficult getting clear pictures. I actually quite like some of the slightly blurry ones though as they reflect the atmosphere...

Didn't realise that songs bought via iTunes are generally copyright protected which means they won't play when posted. If you are reading this then my little plan to get around that has worked.
Anyway, ever since I heard the gypsy punk-influenced music of Gogol Bordello, I've been on the look out for more ethnically influenced sounds and I discovered Beirut recently.
Their sound has a melancholic edge with underlying tones of fiesta and a bygone era - the singer at times sounds like he should have a pencil moustache and be in a 1930's black and white movie.
This is one of my favourite tracks which is called Brandenburg and is from the album Gulag Orkestar

 

I knew it was going to be a lively gig when stuff started getting thrown around - in a nice way - and people were crowd surfing before the band even came on.
The Electric Ballroom is a small venue and gradually got more and more packed until even though I was still halfway back I was losing personal space. But it didn't matter. The crowd whipped up into a frenzy on the build up and then exploded on the first song with everyone around me jumping around.

Normally I'm stood well clear of such energy, mainly for my own safety, this time I joined in partly because the music was so infectious and partly because it was safer to go with everyone else.
Worked out quickly that using the person in front as a bolster by placing my hand firmly in the middle of their back aided the stability.
I honestly didn't believe I could get my gig trainers to move simultaneously off the floor owing to their weight and size but the bloody things can fly I can tell you.
I thought I'd be quite scared but even though the crowd surged a couple of times I couldn't stop grinning like an idiot. And I was sober.
The only scary thing was the number of men who decided to take their shirts off. Not nice, especially when they brush past. Eew.
Even Mosh was jumping up and down at times, a first in twelve years of going to gigs with him.
The band were incredible. Eugene Hutz, the lead singer, gave a frenzied performance working up such a sweat that he stripped down to his cut off denim shorts and green striped foot less tights within a couple of songs.
During the encore the female drummer threw her base drum onto the crowd, jumped on it and did a bit of surfing. She was joined by Eugene - an incredible sight and I glanced around in the hope that my official gig photographer was taking a pic but the selfish bugger was enjoying himself too much.
Eugene then jumped off the drum for some more conventional crowd surfing.
My ears are ringing. My clothes are ringing wet. And I can't get this particular song out of my head:
Not sure the Manics are going to be able to top that tomorrow night.

Got this album for my birthday. Not all the songs quite work, and there are some strange choices of cover such as Map of your head which is a b-side but, the songs that work are brilliant. The strings add an intensity and emotion to the music that I wouldn't have thought possible.
The cover of New Born from their second album Origins of Symmetry is one of my particular favourites, here it alongside the original. Wonder if the band has heard this and what they think...

...and also to my mate Alan, George Clooney, Bob Seger, Tony Blair and if they were still alive Rudolph Valentino, Orson Welles and Sigmund Freud.

Blimey where to start. Already eaten nearly a whole packet of Montezuma's tiny tasty turtles, part of the mountain of chocolate Mosh bought me from my favourite chocolate shop. There's a slab of plain chocolate stuffed with whole brazils, after dinner chocolate dollops and my favourite, vegan truffles, to enjoy.

Got a great stash of other pressies including:

The latter works surprisingly well. In fact it's brilliant. Once I've copied it into my iTunes I'll post a track or two.
My surprise evening out is tickets for Seasick Steve which I'm very excited about as his last London gig had sold out. Then in a fit of spontaneity matched with good timing, Mosh found out that Gogol Bordello are playing London at the end of the month and booked tickets. (That takes this month's gig count up to three!).
To tickle my newly found meat taste buds I got:

Which is going to be well-thumbed and splattered before long.
First bottle of wine was polished off by 9.15am (gone into the slow roast lamb recipe rather than me), there's a couple of bottles of Cava chilling ready to make Kir Royale's in a bit. Overall, not a bad start to my *mumble* year.

* Mosh's French not mine. He did A-level, I scraped a grade 4 CSE