The regular set ended with “Until the Next Time,” with fans invited onstage to dance and sing with the band as the chorus “we'll meet again” rang out.įor the combined band encores, Rancid's Tim Armstrong kicked it off with a solo acoustic take on Johnny Cash's “Folsom Prison Blues,” before the rest of the musicians–now nine-strong–turned it into a punk-rock thumper. And just before the finale of their big hit, the Dropkick Murphys delivered a joyously anarchic take, with crackling guitar lines from James Lynch, on Alice Cooper's “School's Out.” The big moment of course was “Shipping Up to Boston,” but the sound system was so good it was possible to also revel in the fact that banjo (Tim Brennan), accordion (Jeff DaRosa) and pennywhistle (Forshner) are all integral to that rockin' charge. Pennywhistle and accordion were at the heart of the visceral “State of Massachusetts,” and Lee Forschner's bagpipes provided the accent for “Going Out in Style,” a racing foot-stomper that didn't end so much as it just spun out in a vortex of accelerating rhythms–kudos to drummer Matt Kelly. Casey then dedicated “Rose Tattoo” to the family and friends of Caitlyn O'Hara, a Cape Cod fan who had died tragically young, and always loved that song, and the mandolin-centered ballad was certainly a lovely, almost acoustic interlude. There was a blitz through the band's early “Do or Die” album, four songs in a quick paced medley, from the surging “Barroom Hero” to the visceral title cut “Do or Die” to the more subtle garage rock of “Never Alone,” and then the fiery “Boys on the Docks.” Casey noted that Barr had first won them over when he auditioned way back in 1998, with “Curse of a Fallen Soul,” a ballad-bursting-into- punk which also became one of their first successful singles. The large video screen behind the stage was used to good effect on “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ya,” a song about a draftee going off to war, with vintage photos of World War II vets intercut with pictures of kids playing soldier. “I Had a Hat” melded traditional roots with pell mell rhythms, in a humorous tale about losing one's cap in a tavern.
The Dropkicks set included four songs from that latest album, and a wide selection from their past, starting with the lovely acoustic traditional sounds of “The Lonesome Boatman,” which leap into punk rock ferocity with a rousing jolt. As time has gone on, their songwriting abilities have developed too, so while they haven't lost their working class, union men identity, their songs now can be much more nuanced, dealing with serious aspects of life in 2017 America.īut the best summation of the band's approach could be found in the song “Blood” from the album they released this year, “Eleven Short Stories of Pain and Glory.” The tune is kind of their autobiography as a band, as well as a mission statement: “if you want blood, we'll give you some.” An even more salient verse Saturday night may have been “Gonna keep it loud, We don't turn it down, We're coming back, We're taking over this town.” That was the sixth song of their 19-song set, but by the time it finished it was obvious the Shoe City was Dropkicks territory. However scruffy their original image might have been, when they emerged out of a rehearsal space under a North Quincy barbershop in 1996, the Dropkick Murphys today are a well honed group of talented musicians, and their fusing of traditional Celtic flavors with the intensity of punk-rock is as stirring as rock ‘n' roll ever gets. With Rancid's set running roughly 7:30-8:30 p.m, the Dropkick Murphys then performed a 70-minute main set, and then both main acts joined together for a raucous four-song encore segment, concluding with Bobby Fuller's iconic “I Fought the Law.” If none of the bands played gentle or remotely quiet music, residents in the neighborhood could be placated somewhat by the fact the whole concert was over by 10:16 p.m., and everyone in the all-ages throng appeared to be well behaved. There are four acts on the bill in all, with the Bouncing Souls and Jake Burns appearing in the early sets, which kicked off at about 6 p.m.
The Dropkick Murphys are sharing headliner status on this “From Boston to Berkeley Tour” with Rancid, the California ska-punk group that preceded them by a few years, and served as both a stylistic and business inspiration with their fiercely independent philosophy.
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