Golden Festival is put on by Zlatne Uste Brass Band every year, and this year the Burdel Familia finally got our asses over there for a night of rampant celebration in the hyper-opulent surroundings of the Grand Prospect Hall ballroom.

Think pastel-painted molding, chandeliers big enough for 5 people to swing on, balconies overlooking enormous dance floors, and room after room of live music ranging from Spanish flamenco to Bulgarian gypsy-jazz to Ukrainian marches. We saw some of our friends and favorite bands: Kagero, Yuri Yunakov & The Grand Masters of Gypsy Music, Raya Brass Band, Avram Pengas, and tons more. It was killer.

The incredible Gamze performing with Yuri Yunakov—body paint our own enigmatic Liz Belomlinsky…

We had the absolute pleasure of seeing Toronto’s Lemon Bucket Orkestra perform in the grand ballroom and were so blown away we teamed up with our partner in musical crime, Michael Katsobashvili, to escort the band back to Mehanata, where they performed for a packed club and then stayed with us on the mezzanine, jamming until 7:30AM.

There are really no words to describe what an amazing weekend it was altogether. We want to say a huge, huge thank you to the performers, to Zlatne Uste for organizing the whole thing, and for Lemon Bucket for letting us caravan them through the broken NYC subway system very late at night so we wouldn’t have to let the experience end any earlier than absolutely necessary. Look out for Lemon Bucket’s valiant return to NYC ASAP (or our imminent trip to Toronto, whichever happens first).

There was really no better way to start 2012.

Heads up, we are editing a video or two from our 6 gigs of festival footage so you can re-live this night with us!

xoxo,

Burdel Dali Family