Gogol Bordello

Led by the bushy-moustached wild man Eugene Hutz, Gogol Bordello inject traditional Ukrainian gypsy music with the crazed, energetic spirit of punk rock and can count Madonna, Nick Cave and Tom Morello among their fans. Born into a family of Serbo-Roma gypsies, Hutz fled Ukraine in 1986 after the Chernobyl disaster and travelled through refugee camps in Poland, Hungary and Italy before forming the band in Manhattan, New York in 1999 with a gang of fellow immigrants. Naming themselves after writer Nikolai Gogol, their debut album Voi-La Intruder (1999) captured a multi-cultural carnival of raucous energy and became a surprise underground hit in New York. Their boisterous collision of polkas, drinking songs, flamenco rhythms and free-form exuberance came to wider attention on the Steve Albini-produced third album Gypsy Punks (2005), which led to endless festival appearances and a performance of La Isla Bonita with Madonna at the Live Earth concert in London. Rick Rubin produced fifth album Trans-Continental Hustle (2010) and their single Let's Go Crazy became a big anthem of the 2012 European Football Championships, hosted in Poland and Ukraine.

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