Gogol Bordello brings benevolent anarchy to Mr. Small’s

A warning should preface all Gogol Bordello concerts: “Keep careful watch on your belongings… A warning should preface all Gogol Bordello concerts: “Keep careful watch on your belongings and inhibitions.”

After all, the critically renowned multicultural ensemble, which capped off its American tour in Pittsburgh last Thursday, is known for two things: an idiosyncratic hodgepodge of world music and rock ’n’ roll — self-proclaimed as “gypsy punk” — and bringing an audience to the brink of chaos.

Some 30 minutes after Forro in the Dark, a perplexing flute-and-percussion opening act, a few figures were seen emerging from the dressing room onto the darkness of the stage. Before the first note was played or the first cymbal struck, the crowd was already a writhing mosh pit. People were jostled. Screams erupted. An aura of pre-emptive anarchy had descended on Mr. Small’s.

Then the stage lights came on. Standing before fans was a colorful assortment of musicians, wielding varyingly exotic instruments — most notably, an electric violin and an accordion. At the mic, with a handlebar mustache that could put Dave Wannstedt to shame, was the freakishly thin, wine-guzzling Ukrainian frontman, Eugene Hütz.

What followed was somewhat of a blur. The popular Bordello songs, of course, made an appearance — “Wonderlust King,” “Tribal Connection” and, to cap the set off, “Start Wearing Purple” — and Hütz exchanged isolated banter with the crowd. Mostly, however, I remember movement, flailing and noise. Pervading the night was an energy that would make a third World War seem tepid.

Within an hour, in fact, I began to tally things that I had lost track of: a pencil; a certain Pitt News photographer; a man who wriggled past me, screaming, “That guy’s my f**king hero! I need to get up there!”; a woman who had been pulled from the crowd by a flustered security guard; two remarkably lifelike paintings a fan had made of the lead singer and the iconic, grizzled, violinist, Sergey Ryabtsev.

Compounding my disorientation was the fact that each song seemed to bleed into the next one. Because almost all Bordello numbers are composed of shouted choruses, dramatic tempo changes and wild acrobatics — most astoundingly, Bordello’s Ecuadorian MC, Pedro Erazo, crowd surfed on a bass drum — the concert seemed more an uninterrupted anthem than a cycle through hits.

Much like Public Enemy, Bordello has a strong political vein that never inhibits celebration — a plurality of the songs were devoted to promoting the rights of immigrants and the impoverished. This included the encore and the encore’s encore, or, as the frontman put it, “the after party”: a victory lap of acoustic jams, including a cover of Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song.”

Amazingly, order was restored by the concert’s end: I found my pencil, the Pitt News photographer was spotted near the exit, the No. 1 fan had made it to the front of the crowd, the security-nabbed woman could be seen cheering from the balcony, and the lifelike paintings were presented to the band in a heartwarming “gift exchange,” during which Hütz anointed the entire crowd “part of the Gogol Bordello family.”

This is, perhaps, what makes the band so appealing, and so essential: For a few hours, everyone is privy to the best party on the planet, a raucous but good-natured affair that lingers in your mind long after Gogol Bordello has left the stage. City by city, Hütz and his band of misfits are reaffirming the benefits of a global melting pot — or, in Thursday night’s case, a global mosh pit.