If I Had A Nikolai For Every Time I'd Done This Joke...

Gogol Bordello kick arse live, this is a fact. On record, they're fine. So, your choice is clear; now, fly, my pretties, fly.

GOGOL BORDELLO/ THE FIGHTING COCKS, Zodiac, 3/09

The Fighting Cocks have five members, but they only play three instruments, two of which are inaudible. The guitars are there solely for show, and the turntables don’t add much to the incredibly loud punk ragga backing track anyway, so effectively this band consists of four oddly attired people ranting brattishly. As a chunk of ironic Variety it’s fun, but the strength of the show is that The Fighting Cocks are clearly half in love with the same pre-packaged pop they ridicule (both Kelis and B*Witched have their lyrics reappropriated). It can all turn into a Dumb & Dumba Chumbawumba occasionally, but this band are updating the punk credo for the digital age: don’t even bother stealing instruments and half-learning them anymore, just cut straight to the dressing up and shouting. For this, they must surely be admired.

Now, imagine this punk cabaret schtick but put the musicianship back in tenfold, and you’ve got Gogol Bordello. Searing East European fiddle and accordion runs are married to thumping bass and drum rolls that wouldn’t be out of place in Pantera, whilst all the time frontman Eugene Hutz throws his bared torso round the stage like Borat Rotten, his handlebar moustache dripping sweat. What’s amazing is that beneath all the chaos Gogol Bordello are still as tight a folk rock band as anyone could dream of. But when we add in washboard wielding sisters, musicians crowd surfing on bass drums, fists aloft on all sides and one of the biggest stage invasions seen in recent times, the net effect is like an egalitarian Nuremberg Rally. There’s so much going on that any review is in danger of becoming simply a list of salient oddities, but it’s evident that this band are tapping a vein of good old-fashioned showbiz, offering us choreographed carnage, built on ruthlessly honed performance and practised theatricality, equally embracing Busby Berkely, The Who and Taraf De Haiduks. Expect imitators springing up all over London about now. Expect none of them to come even close.