Gogol Bordello: A Fantastic Night of Immigrant Punk

Gogol Bordello, 9:30 Club, Washington, D.C., January 3

Recommended beverage
to go with this show:
a bottle of water.
Gotta hydrate after all that dancing.

Catching Gogol Bordello live is pure joy. They play what they call "immigrant punk," a highly energetic mix of klezmer, Gypsy, and punk rock with heavy doses of reggae, flamenco, and other world music mixed in. It's music so infectious that one cannot help but gleefully jump around and dance.

Bandleader Eugene Hutz, a Ukrainian-Jewish immigrant, told the crowd he's sorry the economy is down, "but at least good music is up." He also told fans to pick up another kind of Gogol at the merch stand; books by classic Russian author Nikolai Gogol were apparently there for sale. He then opened the encore with a bit of Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall," singing "we don't need no education," beginning a 30-minute encore that kept the crowd in as much of a dance frenzy as they'd been in all night.