Concrete Playground

If gypsy-punk, moustaches, thick Ukrainian accents, screaming guitars, tongue-in-cheek lyrics and singalongs squeeze your proverbial squeezebox, then this is the show for you. Gogol Bordello are a multicultural ensemble that started out in Manhattan's Lower East Side. Their members range from Russian accordion players to Scottish-born Hong Kong Chinese percussionists, to Ukranian-born political refugee Eugene Hutz.

Hutz is the enigmatic front man and founder of the band, the one that looks like a poster boy for moustache wax and revolutionary military wear. And Gogol Bordello is the epitomisation of Hutz's outlook and political beliefs — a punk rock party that takes Romani roots and introduces them to a wider audience within tales of sordid debauchery and America's absurdity. Gogol Bordello and Hutz himself have been documented heavily in film and have crept into popular culture: docos chart the band's career and Hutz's yearly sabbatical to Eastern Europe (The Pied Piper of Hutzovina), and Hutz starred in Madonna's directorial debut Filth and Wisdom and played the lovable, honky Alex in Everything Is Illuminated, which also features the band's music.

The band live up to their gypsy ideals, touring non-stop, their live show a chaotic mix of accordion and fast-paced punk jams with thick Ukrainian patois, dancing backup singers, and a 50-something-year-old shredding on the violin.