Whisky- a- Gogol

Gogol Bordello - Saturday, January 3rd, 2009 - 9:30 Club, $36

NYC's Gogol Bordello played two shows at the 9:30 Club this past weekend (in case you've been out of town). I made it to night #2.

Three things about seeing this band:
1. I am late to this party, having only heard of GB this summer whilst at ACL. Sorry BYT, I missed your interview from 2007.
2. They sold out two consecutive nights during a sleepy post-holiday, pre-inauguration time in DC.
3. When I think of Eastern Europe, I think of palm readers and vampires. After seeing this show, when I think of Eastern Europe, I think of mustachioed palm readers and mustachioed vampires.

Gogol Bordello played the AT&T stage on day one of Austin City Limits (2008), at the same time we were checking out the Delta Spirit. I think it was also about the time we headed for a dip in Barton Springs; but GB were hard to miss on the jumbo tron - and tough to ignore given the size of the crowd they attracted.

It's hard to remember now exactly what I thought of them back then, especially since Emma Peel has rightly pointed out that they share some basic similarities to Monotonix. Hairy, foreign-ish, unpredictable. When I try to compare them to anything, Monotonix is the first thing I reach for - a second pick would be to compare GB's lead singer, Eugene Hütz, with a 30-something Frank Zappa.

Hütz

Zappa

On Friday night, DCRC failed to make it out to see Greenland at the Red & the Black, and instead opted to finally watch the Joe Strummer documentary (The Future is Unwritten), which I've had from Netflix since August. Sacklunch is slated to tell you more about that...

So when Saturday night rolled around, it seemed like a good idea to see what all the Gogol commotion was about. Accompanied by the honorable (and aforementioned) Emma Peel, I stood out front of the 9:30 club looking for a pair of tix to GB's second show, where we witnessed the arrival of Mr. Hütz by taxi, pulling up along side of us with a saucy lil lady. It seemed a bit odd that he entered through the front doors of the club after climbing out of a cab, but at least we were certain we hadn't missed anything on stage.

We procured a couple of tickets and made our way up to where RC normally stands, only to find that our favorite spot had been converted to a VIP, roped-off, area. VIP, indeed. Had Jumbo Slice been in attendance, he would have schmoozed his way in. Instead, we found a perch by the bar up top.

Uh huh. Fascinating. Is this going anywhere?
Right. Sorry. I've rarely seen a crowd so enthusiastic in DC as I did Saturday night. The club was packed, and Gogol Bordello brought out the accordion-infused gypsy-rock to the delight of the sea of Ukrainiaphiles gathered below. GB are performers, circus folk maybe. I'm not sure. Not being familiar with their catalog, I was nonetheless highly entertained by their showmanships. Yes, there were more than one of them.

A couple of songs in, two tall, healthy, young lasses wearing some sort of mask/hat with feathers joined onstage and played the wash boards. These nice young gals added another spectacle to behold, and raised the question: why aren't there cheerleaders for every occasion? I move that we add them to just about every event that is scheduled. Funerals might be a bit tough. But maybe not, tearleaders perhaps? But I think we can agree that men and women alike can appreciate pretty ladies getting their groove on.

Anyhow, as do most bands I hear for the first/second time, the GB sound began to repeat itself in my mind (and ear). Lots of up tempo danceable eastern-European sounding tracks (Bar Mitzvah-ready rock, as Emma Peel remarked). And then, I had a Dave Mathews Band flashback, as the eclectic nature of the instruments took hold of me and things seemed a bit too gleeful.

After a few more songs, the two young gals returned adorned with roller-derby appropriate shorts and tight tops, one of them carrying a marching-band bass drum. They were effective in erasing the DMB image from my mind, and Gogol Bordello continued to inspire the throngs to dance/jump/nod repeatedly in rhythm. I was rather impressed by this, as more often than not, there's lots of shoe gazing at the shows we see.

Still, this was a band that I only need to see once. Much like my reaction to Monotonix and Pleaseeasaur (although I ended up seeing him twice), the spectacle of the performance is the big pay-off. I don't need to give Gogol Bordello's CDs too many spins, I don't think. But their live show was worth waiting outside in the cold for 20 minutes asking around for tickets.

The mortician and the grave digger

The Raconteurs w/ The Black Lips - Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 9:30 Club, $50+

This post is so overdue; it’s almost not worth writing. This will be one of those posts that we throw up for posterity, not as news (as it is far from new). This is supposed to be sacklunch’s review, too, but he’s never going to write it as he’s busy with plans for the upcoming Turkey Balls Falls weekend, so I’m just gonna squeeze one out. Enjoy.

When I saw that the Raconteurs were scheduled to play at the 9:30 Club in May, I was quick to mark my calendar and eager to hop online and get myself some tickets. It was a bit of a pain to get them, as the tickets.com site was all kinds of jammed up that day, and I had to buy my two tickets one at a time (meaning, I had to go through the whole ordering process twice). It was a big pain in the ass, but I was happy to have scored myself a way into the 930 to check out Jack White and his compadres.

Not to sound like one of those annoying people who love to tell you that they saw [insert hot new artist dujour] when they were playing in the high school marching band etc, I was lucky enough to see the White Stripes play at the old Black Cat with Stuttson and Duh Cut in 2000 (?)… jeez that was a long time ago… Anyhow, of course, they rocked that show and the bar was set rather high in my mind. In the subsequent years since, I think I’ve been to 3 more White Stripes shows, and I didn’t really think any of them were all that great. I usually complain that Meg White gets lost in the songs, and Jack White spends too much time trying to get her to lay down the beat that he needs to continue on. I also have been known to drone on and on about how much better Jack White would be if he just had a full blown band supporting him, so he could rock out properly. Enter Brendan Benson, and the Greenhornes’ Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler, and the Raconteurs seem to be the solution I was looking for.

Now, I should mention that Jimbromski failed to get tickets for this concert, and sacklunch managed to snag another ticket to set us all up with entry to the sold out show. But Jimbromski balked at the ticket price (something about sending his son to college someday) and refused to go. Dumbass. So sacklunch went out and found a taker for the ticket, and it was just the two of us for this highly anticipated show. We went to night #2 of the 2 night schedule since it was Mr. & Mrs. Sacklunch’s wedding anniversary on the first night. Aw. How touching.

Not only were we going to see the Raconteurs, but opening was The Black Lips, whom we’ve seen, I dunno, something like 7 times. [Note to RC: We should get an intern to run stats and handle the advanced ticket purchases and perform other odd jobs for us.] Seeing The Black Lips on a larger stage was also highly anticipated, and the evening was poised to be an instant-classic.

We arrived in plenty of time to see The Black Lips aggravate a large number of people, particularly the meatheads and their girlfriends behind me. This was not the audience that The Black Lips was likely accustomed to seeing before they started this tour. I thought The Black Lips were good, but they suffered from serious technical difficulties, right to the bitter end as Cole Alexander struggled with his ax, unplugging and exchanging cords to his guitar during their last song, without success. The bass was also incredibly loud, even for them, and it made it less than a stellar performance.

Given Jimbromski’s refusal to join us for this show (the nerve), sacklunch and I decided we’d tell him it was the best concert of the year regardless of the truth. And that’s what we did. Until now. In my opinion, this show was a major disappointment. The Raconteurs started off strong, but much like every other Jack White performance except the 1st, there were major breakdowns throughout the show. Drummer Patrick Keeler seemed to fumble his way through several songs, and there were times when the other members just circled their way around and around and around waiting for the backbeat to return. Painful. I’m sure there were plenty of people who thought this show was awesome, or would argue with me, but I know what I saw and heard, and I thought this show was a disaster in its middle. The beginning and end were good bookends, but the middle was just not good. I’m starting to wonder if it isn’t Jack White that’s to blame. I blamed Meg White in the past, and now this. Maybe it’s not the drummers’ fault. But I still think it is.

So go ahead, Jimbromksi, you can say you were right and that it wasn’t worth the $. It seemed like a good risk to take at the time. I will be more careful about any future Jack White live performances moving forward. I didn’t make it through the entire NPR podcast of the Tuesday-night show, so maybe that one was good. But the Weds night show didn’t cut it.

As an aside, I thought Jack White looked a lot like Rocky Balboa (and also like Al Gore - not pictured).

Jack White with his pasty white face and dark suit – standing next to a very skinny Brendan Benson dressed in tattered jeans and boots - the two looked like they'd been hired to put Bo Diddley in the ground.