email from my good pal rob:

the evening began... with martinis and ended in madness. My dreams this morning were apocalyptically effected by this band last night...! Beautiful!

Woke from my post-martini nap around 8, and the coin told me to go, go (three times), go! So I went...

At 9:00, below the Middle East, the room was less than half full.

On stage, when I arrived, was a delicate-looking woman in victorian dress, operetting her way along meaty delicacies ground out by marimba, xylophone, drum, bass, guitar, and theremin, sung in Russian, English, and very likely other languages I couldn't catch. Guitarist, seated and relaxed. Theremin player an elf of a girl, pulling sounds from the air sincere and subtle and, occasionally, perfectly shrill. The only time (after my arrival, at least) that the lead singer spoke was just before their last song. She dedicated it to "the focking president..... (extraordinarily LONG pause)... of the focking center... (another extraordinarily LONG pause).. of this country", and then, so uncharacteristic from the rest of their set, slammed out a version of Black Sabbath's War Pigs that had everyone's heads banging. The theramin player hit the "guitar" solo like a magician casting spells with her fingers. Barbez, they were called, out of Brooklyn NY. http://www.barbez.com/

Next came an accordionist and a drummer who slapped out tunes in turn jaunty and ragged. I've never heard an accordion make such sounds before. One moment it was your Polish Uncle's wedding, the next it was a screaming electric guitar. These men were soon revealed to be two members of the Beat Circus http://www.thebeatcircus.com/ when men with horns (a saxophone, a tuba, the smallest real trombone I've ever seen) played their way through the crowd from the back of the room and on to the stage. After two ridiculously entertaining songs, swaying wildly from brass band Oom-pa to acid-sounding reverb rock and back again, a woman in sparkly top hat and tails walked across the stage to a boozy brass tune, carrying a sign for the audience that read: "Mary Widow" in vaudeville script. She was followed by a another young woman in glitter attire and a fellow in '30's dress-up garb, and a series of cheesy yet well performed burlesque skits ensued, each ending in a bad joke and the woman undressed but for fancy underpants and clever pasties. This was the Black Cat Burlesque http://www.blackcatburlesque.com/ who performed, while the Beat Circus played away, alternately with sword swallower Tyler Fyer http://www.tylerfyre.com/ who frightened and disgusted us all with his nasal and oral abilities.

But then... finally.. and I had no Idea what to expect.. Gogol Bordello came on. http://www.gogolbordello.com/

A young, well dressed accordion player, and older fellow with wild gray hair and a fiddle, a tall, lean lead singer with a mustache far too cheesy for him not to be of eastern European origin, were the main focuses until the beautiful mongol twins came out, singing along, jumping, falling, kicking their feet into the air, and pulling the singer to the floor . For the first three songs, I kneeled on my barstool with my mouth hanging open. By the last song, I was pogo-ing uncontrollably in the middle of the crowd. Every few songs, the the two girls would come out in slightly different attire, but usually wearing black, pointy hats of the steppes. For the rest of their appearances, one would carry and play hot brass hand-held cymbals, while the other had a huge base drum strapped to her chest and would bang on it with an equally huge mallet. During the last song (a cross between New Year's Eve and Armageddon.. what I'd expect to hear around a raucous gypsy campfire on the night the world comes crashing to an end), she unstrapped herself from it and held it over the audience for our random hands to bang, then climbed on top of it as we held it high over our heads and passed her around the room. The show built to such a pitch that the Middle East sound person shut their power before they came to any conclusion, yet they played on anyway. The security people were furious. The band and we were undaunted. Eventually, they stopped when they realized that their sound wasn't reaching too far into the room anymore, and that no one could hear the singer even speak his good-byes.

I had the craziest walk home after. Wotta night.