By Chris Richards
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 3, 2010
It’s breakfast time at Dukem, the popular Ethiopian restaurant on U Street NW, but Thomas “Tommy T” Gobena orders lunch. In a city of red-eyed, Cinnabon-scarfing frequent fliers, he might be the most jet-lagged man in Washington.
Gobena lives in Alexandria but will spend most of this new year in the air and on the road, playing bass for Gogol Bordello, a merry band of self-branded “Gypsy punks” scheduled to hit about 200 stages across the globe in 2010. Days earlier, Gobena was wowing a crowd of 20,000 in Mexico City. In a few days, he’ll be at it again in St. Petersburg, Russia.
With a hyper-kinetic live show that’s part ramshackle cabaret, part rock-and-roll exorcism and part culture-mashing swirl, Gogol Bordello seems to translate loud and clear on almost every corner of the planet. For the band on tour, border crossing becomes both a musical and literal pursuit.
“I’m not really a loud person,” Gobena says, sipping cinnamon tea at Dukem. “But I can say this about the band. . . . You don’t have to be huge fan. You don’t have to buy the CD and follow us everywhere. But if you come to the show you won’t go back.”
Gogol Bordello performs at Washington’s 9:30 club Saturday and Sunday, and is fronted by the irrepressible Eugene Hütz– a sort of Ukrainian Iggy Pop whose good looks and wild-style charisma have earned him Hollywood film roles and collaborations with Madonna. The band is based in New York but its members hail from Israel, Scotland, Russia, Ecuador, the United States — and in the case of Gobena, Ethiopia by way of Northern Virginia.
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