Gogol Bordello

Last night: Gogol Bordello. What to say? As usual, Hutz & Co. played their hearts out. The setlist had a fairly lengthy digression into something like a samba medley in the middle, with Eugene and Pedro playing that… uh, tin can thing? The upshot was that we got a few less GB songs than we usually would have, but the show and energy were up to the usual level of excellence. The venue was large, with good sound. Smoking was notionally prohibited, but you actually had cigarette girls wandering around selling (of all things) Chesterfields. Unlike concerts in the states, the time listed on the tickets was actually the time the first act went on stage. Venues in the states, I encourage you to adopt this practice.

Our seats were a bit further back than we'd expected--we paid extra for "VIP" tix, which means that we had a place to sit if we were so inclined. All Robin knew when she bought them was that they were in the first row; she didn't know and had no reason to suspect that the VIP section was in the very back of the hall. Nor was there any reason to suspect that it would be peopled primarily with the most sedate people I've ever seen at a concert. They didn't stand up, they didn't dance, they didn't sing along, they usually didn't even applaud. Towards the end we did wind up with a couple of guys dancing like crazy in the aisle--maybe it was the liquor.

Minor complaints here--for the most part, a good time was had by all and it even got out early enough to make the metro (though Pl. A-Nevskogo closes early, for some reason).