What do 'OUCH!' and Gogol Bordello have in common?
OUCH.
Yuki: ouch?
Me: ouch!
Me: ouch?
Yuki: ouch!
Me: ouch.
Yuki: ouch.
Both: *hurt* *lick battle wounds*
So that was more or less our conversation after the AMAZING Gogol Bordello concert on Friday.
Well, and a bit of 'Huh?' thrown in there 'cos we could hardly hear a thing.
But all that really doesn’t matter. After all we were first row!
Now, being first row has its advantages, but also its disadvantages.
First off, the advantages.
There was some space between the loudspeakers on the stage and we were standing right in front of it. Seemingly attracted by Yuki’s hair and our matching shirts (or something), Eugene offered us his leg to hold on to on several occasions and we were sprinkled with red wine and sweat.
And why, oh why, did he have to hold out his mic to us every time we could NOT sing along.
Oh Eugene! Why did you do it, Eugene? (Erm, sorry Yuki. Couldn’t help myself.)
Anyway, he wasn’t the only one stepping up to the audience. We had the chance to paw at all the other band members as well, which Yuki took advantage of shamelessly.
Pam seemed to be a little shy about actual contact with the fans at first, but then she took and held my hand for quite a while and winked at me (I’d like to imagine that my reassuring smile made her do it *g*). Yuki had to touch her drum of cause. Wouldn’t let the poor woman do her job. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Nah, I’m just kidding. She practically thrust her drum in our direction. Touching was inevitable. Pam’s eyes were really kind and her smile was just the sweetest. So Yuki and I decided that we’ll give her and Elijah our blessing (as if they would care *g*).
The other guys in the front row were also very nice and we stuck together ‘cos…
… here come the disadvantages.
We were nearly squeezed to death. It seemed that all the other people behind us wanted to be in exactly the same place we were in. Which is physically impossible, ‘cos more than one body cannot be in the same place. But obviously most of these guys didn’t pay attention in school. At any rate, using our elbows a lot, pushing myself off of the barricade and even once biting a guy’s thump seemed to help a little. At least for short periods of time.
Yury, the accordion player, looked like he was feeling really sorry for us and also a little worried at times.
But we survived!
After the concert was over we even got the set list (sprinkled with red wine and sweat) and after looking pleadingly at Eliot, the drummer, he brought us some bottles of water. What a nice guy (ok, now some gushing about Eliot. He is soooo cute. I’d just love to… Erm, yeah. I guess that’s enough).
Anyway, the concert was just super-taranta-amazing and Eugene in red high heels and pink wig was the ‘super-extra-highlight of the show’. We even saw him before the supporting act started but didn’t talk to him. As for saura_'s question if we had seen Elijah there, I have to say that, if elijah was there, we didn't see him. But we didn't hear anything about him being there neither before nor after the concert. And honestly, it was great being first row, but with everything else going on (fighting to survive and the great music) i didn't have a lot of time to see whether he was there or not.
All in all, we enjoyed a wonderful night with Gogol Bordello and can’t wait for their next concert.
(and next time we’ll bring along knee pads and a bed of nails to strap onto our backs; nails facing away from us of course)
So if there is anyone out there thinking about going to one of their concerts... Do it! They are made of greatness.
Here are some more pics of Eugene...
Oh, and Yuki so sorry we cannot be London now. But... well, YOU had to get a job ;) Though I would say we had a great time 2 weeks ago don't you think!?