Your Weekend Starts Here: Gogol Bordello at the Palace

The last 18 months couldn’t have been easy for Eugene Hütz, frontman at the heart of the storm that is Gogol Bordello. In many ways, I see Eugene like a shark that has to keep swimming to stay alive, and it was a little concerning that he couldn’t tour or move as he had been.

But Eugene and the band made the best of a bad situation and wrote a new album, with production duties headed up by Hütz himself.

The result is ‘Seekers and Finders,’ and the band is headed to the Palace Theatre in St. Paul on Friday night, with their storm of strings, shredding guitars, and vocals all over the map.

It’s only been two years since they last took the same stage (even though it feels more like 10), and at the time I’d been hitting up 2-3 shows per week, and their performance was an absolute standout. They’re hilarious, highly interactive, they feed off and generate a crazy amount of energy. It was one of those shows that I’d think about in the midst of lockdown and tear up at the thought.

Of course, the thought of re-entering an enclosed space for a concert as capacity is also a little daunting. The band and First Avenue have posted their respective COVID protocol requirements for upcoming shows, which is proof of vaccination, or a negative COVID-19 test result dated within 72 hours of showtime. So be prepared to show exactly one more piece of documentation than usual. Full details can be found on First Avenue’s site here.