Gogol Bordello, Gypsy Sounds Come to Sonar

If you are looking for the best live show in the world you will find it at Sonar on Tuesday, Oct. 16. On this night and this night only the most formidable gypsy-punk band in America will grace the main stage with their frenetic eight-man band.

Eugene Hütz, Gogol's founder and well-loved frontman, hails from the Ukraine where he tapped his gypsy roots to inspire his music. He moved to the States after surviving the Chernobyl disaster, eventually landing in New York, N.Y. Nestled in the Lower East Side, he and other Eastern European immigrants ganged up to form Gogol Bordello.

Their music fuses punk rock (think the political themes of The Clash) with the traditional sound of gypsy folk. Under Hütz's manic leadership, the group takes their cues less from "world music" - which they never cease to ridicule for its dowdy roots - and more from the thrashing, high-energy acts of the New York punk scene and the all-night revelry of Roma celebrations. In fact the band prides itself on the diversity of their group, which, at last count, was comprised of a member from almost every continent.

This heady ethnic brew makes for an epic concert experience, where every band member shreds their instruments and their voices to pieces while giving the audience a sweat-soaked evening of a rambling and chest-pumping hybrid of American and Ukrainian punk.

With their newest release Super Taranta and the success of their riotous single "Start Wearing Purple" - which became the unofficial theme song for the Baltimore Ravens' 2006-7 season - Gogol enters their current tour on a wave of popular and critical goodwill.

If you make it to the show look out for songs like the infectious "Wonderlust King" and others like "Not a Crime," "Immigrant Punk," "Lela Pala Tute" and "60 Revolutions."

Watching them live, however, is like witnessing a natural phenomenon that can't translate onto a record: It goes and goes, and just when you think it can't possibly go any further, it hits the crescendo, only to hit it again 10 minutes later.

Their stage antics include everything from a ballistic hype-man (a Balkan version of Flava Flav) to the lead singer crowd surfing atop a gigantic drum. Gogol Bordello is not to be missed as they are a refreshing burst of engergy, a far cry from the more subdued crowd that we are used to seeing at Sonar.