Last week I went to see Dropkick Murphys for the third time. They’re one of those bands that I’m fairly indifferent to on record, but live they turn a really cliched Irish-angle into an absolute riot of punk fury, and it’s a total blast. The set starts fast and gets more and more familiar and heady as it goes on, dropping in punk versions of ‘The Fields Of Athenry’ and ‘The Gangs All Here’ along with other hamonica, guitar and (bizarrely) bagpipe-focused Irish staples.
Last week’s show was good, though not quite the standard of the pre Saint Patrick’s Day chaos they whipped up a few months back, but it’s the big finish that always blows me away. It’s like a game of ‘spot the band’, with the stage filled slowly with girls pulled from the audience, followed by an all-out invasions from the guys during the last two-three tracks of an extended encore. I was lucky enough to be up on the balcony overlooking it all, and while my phone doesn’t take the best pictures in the world (especially when I’m the person using it), this gives a pretty good idea of the chaos…
Things get going:
The crowd get into it:
A Break For Some Acoustic Numbers:
The encore starts, and Al starts picking out a large collection of ladies:
And a few more…
The men get invited up, too, and things get busy…
Spot the band…
Irish security are normally pretty harsh (no crowd surfing, no sitting on shoulders, occasional hassle if you choose to jump around too much, too), but they must have been pre-warned about this as they only had a minor tantrum about it. Dropkick Murphys seem to do a similar thing night after night (or at least they have each of the three times I’ve seen them), but it’s a top example of how to make a show into something truly memorable.