(I got the idea for this series while sifting through the ‘piles’ of digital photos on my laptop. It occurred to me to share some of these great pics from some of my favourite concert sets from time to time. Until I get around to the next one, I invite you to peruse my ever-growing list of concerts page.)
Artist: Gogol Bordello
When: July 10th, 2014
Where: Claridge Homes stage, Ottawa Bluesfest, Lansdowne Park, Ottawa
Context: It’s been quite a while since I’ve done one of these Live music gallery posts. I was sharing pictures of past concerts on the regular back in the spring, back when this pandemic was so new and the sting of cancelled tours and music festivals was still fresh. It’s been close to fourteen months now since I stood in a heaving crowd and experienced music the way it was meant to be and I’ve resigned myself to the fact it will likely be a bunch more months before we all get back there. But when we do, I’m definitely finding passes to a music festival and going large. And it’s not necessarily going to matter who’s playing because we know the musicians are missing this as much as we are and the first bunch of shows they all do are going to be epic. Kind of like when I saw gypsy punk collective, Gogol Bordello at Bluesfest back in 2014. The energy was palpable, aggressive but not violent, and it was all ignited simply by frontman Eugene Hütz arriving on stage. He was a lightning rod for sure, but the other seven members of the band weren’t exactly inert either. In fact, I think the crowd on stage were just as rowdy as the crowd watching, each playing the hell out of their instruments, be it fiddle, guitar, bongo drum, or accordion, and each contributing to the mass vocal message. The music was equally good for dancing as it was for slamming into other people, as witnessed by the different ways the varied crowd appreciated the performance. By the time Hütz finally dispensed with the shirt that was only getting in the way of his running about the stage about halfway through the set, I knew Gogol Bordello’s was a performance I would remember for years to come.
Point of reference song: “Amen”
My (life in) music lists 