Despite what you may have heard, tonight’s Gogol Bordello show at the Blue Moose Tap House is not sold out.
Best of all, there couldn’t be a better day for Gogol Bordello to be coming into town. In Iowa City, August 1 typically means dedicating the bulk of your day to a monotonous, grinding session of packing, lifting, loading, transporting and unloading your seemingly endless supply of possessions. All of this for the higher purpose of moving into a new place, though, for the restless souls among us, it can really feel like moving in place, your “new” neighborhood completely familiar to you as it was only a short walk from where you already were.
To vent such stationary blues, a song like “Wanderlust King,” one of many Gogol Bordello songs giving due to the glories of peripatetic living, can serve as great company.
Starting off with hushed jibes that cathartically state your own concerns, “Now all them jokers kept around / Just like the scarecrows in hometown” and then suddenly veering into all-too-inviting refrain, “But I’m a wanderlust king / I stay on the run / Let me out / Let me be gone,” as the melange of eastern European music spills over with it’s frenzy, the song’s progression sneaks up on you in a way that leaves you convinced you’ve escaped to somewhere far off and endless fascinating. Convinces you even if you have just spent the whole day driving back back and forth across the same street a dozen times.
So, at least for tonight, why not drop your moving boxes and sedentary 9-5 scarecrow shtick and crown yourself a wanderlust king, complete with the full Gogol Bordello gypsy punk disdain for all borders whether they be between countries, genres or generations.
Gogol Bordello plays the Blue Moose Tap House tonight. Doors at 8:00 p.m., show at 9:00 p.m. The band’s latest album, Pura Vida Conspiracy, was released this July.
Wanderlust King
