The night begins with a screening of Scream of My Blood: A Gogol Bordello Story. Afterwards, Eugene Hutz and Sergey Ryabtsev came on stage for a full 2 hours.

The Q & A session format was Eugene and Sergey playing songs blended in with answering the questions.  Recalling a scene in the documentary of Eugene becoming upset giving a phone interview, he said how emotionally draining answering questions was to him.  So understandably, Eugene raises his spirits during Q & A by playing his beloved music in this stripped down setting.

A tense situation arises when an emotional young man asked how could Eugene write the song lyrics, “Borders are the scars of the Earth”, when borders are the only thing stopping the Russians from killing his grandma. Eugene took a a long, uneasy moment to answer, painfully turning the question over in front of the live audience. To summarize his long winding answer, when Eugene wrote the song “We Rise Again” in 2012, he was much more hopefully and optimistic.  It was before the brutal Russian invasion of Crimea and the current invasion of Ukrainian, which was considered an absurd impossibility. He no longer feels borders are like scars on this planet. Maybe we realize that we want to form scars when our wounds are still gushing.  Then, Eugene and Sergio really laid into playing the next song.

Cost of a ticket: $35
PlaylistHQ Economic Rating: Worth It +
Rating Scale: Exceptional Value > Worth It > Discounted > Go for Free > Don’t Bother

Brian Bolton