Music

‘It was amazing,’ shouts Eugene Hütz, as he summons the particularly fond memory of a recent festival. ‘You see this neighbourhood and it’s so down, down, down, with all this incredible poverty. Then, the next minute, it’s up, up, up, and it won’t ever stop. It goes on into the night. It’s elevating. It’s elevation above all the hardship.’

While it is a smashing day out, Hütz is not, as you might deduce from his mention of incredible poverty and hardship, talking about Clapham Common’s Get Loaded in the Park, which Hütz and his gang of righteous gypsy punks, Gogol Bordello, are thrilled to be playing on Sunday August 24. The New York-based Ukrainian is, in fact, relaying to us his experience of a music festival in Sulukule – an area in Istanbul where the dominant Romani population (a heritage that Hütz shares) isn’t exactly made to feel welcome, in spite of the hundreds of years it’s been settled there.

‘The very amazing part,’ continues Hütz, ‘is that from the moment we started playing, people responded. The next thing you know, you’re surrounded by loads of kids clapping along and rapping. Then, all of a sudden, other musicians start playing along. It’s like a scene out of a movie every single time. Those people will live off that for months.’ Feature continues

With our festival season beginning its death-splutter, every park and field – from Chelmsford to Loch Fyne – will be covered in canopies and grass-killing, behemoth-like stages over these final weekends of August. So many are taking place in 2008, it’s perhaps too easy to forget a festival’s initial purpose: to raise our spirits, to promote solidarity (just like in Sulukule), to get off one’s heavily pierced head in the face of severe oppression and/or to, um, celebrate a particularly fruitful harvest. Giving thanks, altruism and protest are all much better reasons for gathering in a field than to sway drunkenly about, while jabbering inanely through an entire set by One Night Only.

For nearby examples of the festival as a proper, social-utilitarian event (our closest being Glastonbury, of course), Serbia’s Exit and Hungary’s Sziget are two shining beacons. The former was birthed as a protest against war-mongering president Slobodan Milosevic, and the looniness that takes place at them is symbolic of something tangible being released. Hütz, who tells us that the strangest place he’s ever heard his own music was a field party in Eastern Europe, says that Roma festivals are equally terrific.

‘I’m fucking expert in them,’ he swears. ‘There are Roma festivals all over the world – in France, in Spain, in Macedonia, in Russia. Some of them are Roma pilgrimages, where actual Roma come. Others are more organised and serve half tradition and half tourism. Whatever, they’re usually a celebration of family and tribal connection. It’s a celebration of a people that refuse to assimilate, so it’s quite political.’

Hütz – and Time Out agrees with him on this point – isn’t saying that our own festivals need to be politicised, or full of anarchists tearing down fences. He’s simply telling us to let go a bit. To ditch those silly fold-up chairs, maybe even your clothes, and just go with it. Otherwise, we’re in serious danger – if we’re not there already – of turning into straw-hat-wearing zombies who stand in fields full of advertising, not because we like it, but because Sunday supplements tell us to.

‘Festivals are about a communal experience; a tribal thing,’ says Hütz, who promises that we’ll all be going bananas and releasing something during Gogol’s performance next Sunday. ‘My friend, he lives in Ethiopia with a tribe of indigenous people. At the end of every night they build a fire and dance around it. It’s a celebration!’

We’re doubtful that the keepers of Clapham Common will be okay with that, but there’ll be ample opportunity to join a rebellion this coming Sunday. SW4 isn’t the first place we’d expect to see a tribe of rowdy rockers – lest babies are knocked flying from their designer buggies – but, for one day (and part of the evening) only, it will play host to three fuck-you, right-on individuals: Beth Ditto (Gossip), Iggy Pop (and The Stooges, of course) and Eugene Hütz. All of them, Hütz says, ‘will accelerate the good vibes’.

If you’ve seen a wild, rampaging Hütz in full swing, you’ll already know that he’s an expert at this. In fact, his new pals Madonna, Manu Chao and Metallica’s Kirk Hammett have all invited him on stage to liven things up for them. And, true to Hütz’s total disregard for hierarchy and social organisation (‘It’s boring, it’s not my planet,’ he rails), Hütz promises that even after the band step off the Get Loaded stage, there’ll be more to come.

‘Gogol Bordello is a huge entity,’ he says with audible pride. ‘It takes over anything, be it a squat, an arena, a festival or an after-party in a kitchen. It’s Gogol Bordello time in every fucking way possible.’

Gogol Bordello play Get Loaded in the Park on Clapham Common on Sunday August 24. Last remaining tickets available from www.ticketmaster.co.uk or by phoning 0844 477 2467.