Red Sox Baseball. The Marathon on
Patriots' Day. Gratuitous Sarcasm. Berating any person in the city
who has the gall to admit they're from New York. These are all proud
traditions in the city of Boston. Saturday night marked the final
night of another proud Boston tradition; the Dropkick Murphys St.
Patrick's Day week shows at the House of Blues. And per usual the
Murphys delivered a great performance worthy of their legendary
billing.
The show got started off with Irish
folk punk act Blood or Whiskey. Given that they hail from Dublin, I
expected the most authentic and badass Celtic punk imaginable. I
couldn't have been more wrong. What I got instead was horribly put
together and downright obnoxious music from an act that couldn't
decide if they were an old-timey Celtic folk or a sloppy
Ramones-esque punk band. Making their jarring sound even worse was
their amateurish stage presence. In all my years of seeing live
music, I've never seen a signed, touring band that looked so visibly
uncomfortable on stage. Everyone besides their singer seemed like
they were paralyzed with stage fright and their singer, despite being
very talkative, came across as very awkward with his strange
mannerisms and overbearingly abrasive crowd interaction that
completely clashed with the restrained nature of his bandmates. To
put it lightly, Bloody or Whiskey started the showed with a
noticeable thud and I hope the hell I never have to suffer through
another set from them ever again.
Canada's The Mahones were up next.
While they were a noticeable upgrade from Blood or Whiskey, their
music just didn't really resonate with me.. The first couple of songs
were decent enough, but after that, everything started to bleed
together and they became very dull in no time at all. I'd be remiss
if I didn't note that my indifference towards The Mahones was far
from the consensus. A large portion of the crowd was singing along,
moshing and just generally going crazy for a majority of their set.
The Mahones are certainly a respectable, polished band, their brand
of ska-tinged punk just failed to make an impression of on me.
After the two bad-to-middling openers,
it was finally time for the men of the hour to perform. After the
haunting intro of “The Foggy Dew” by Sinead O'Connor played over
the PA, the curtain dropped and the band launched into “The State
of Massachusetts” and the entire venue launched into an all-out
frenzy. “The State of Massachusetts” was a rousing opener that
served as the perfect start to a high-energy, set. The whole band
sounded excellent and didn't seem even remotely worn down after
performing two shows earlier that day. I can't even imagine the
physical toll performing two full shows and a brief acoustic set in a
less than 12 hour period has, so major props to the Murphys for not
only being able to do it, but to not have it hinder the quality of
their performance at all. Going in, I was very nervous that they were
going to load the set with cuts from their mediocre 2013 LP Signed
and Sealed in Blood. Thankfully,
they only played four tracks from that album, including the only two
songs (“Rose Tattoo, “Prisoner's Song”) on the entire record
that I consider to be noteworthy. Instead, they played really even
balance of older and more recent material with no one album really
dominating the setlist. The setlist was generally pretty good (always
nice to see them player lesser known older material like “Memories
Remain” and “Curse of a Fallen Soul”), but I really wished they
played more cuts from Blackout and
The Warrior's Code. Hearing
a combined total of five songs from those two records (two of which
are permanent cornerstones “I'm Shipping Up to Boston” and “Kiss
Me I'm Shiftfaced”) during their nearly two hour set was a serious
bummer. Setlist nitpicking aside, Dropkick Murphys are a consistently
formidable live band that is entirely worthy of the legend status
they have in Massachusetts.
Side Notes:
-Dropkick Murphys had fans throws darts
to choose the three rarities they'd play. Each section of the board had a
different song assigned to it (the songs and their corresponding section of
the board were projected on a video screen behind them) and while it took a while for people in the front to actually hit the board, it was definitely one of the
coolest things I've ever seen at a show. Additional kudos go to the Murphys for
jokingly putting songs like “It's Raining Men” and “Gagnam
Style” on the list.
-Unlike the previous two times I'd seen
them in 2011 and 2012, there was a TON of inconsiderate assholes at
this show. The amount of (mostly intoxicated) people I had fall on,
grope, push, etc. me and other people in my vicinity was unreal. It
wasn't quite as out of hand as the August Burns Red show I went to at
the House of Blues in January, but the general douchiness of many of
the attendees put a bit of a damper on the evening.
-Blood or Whiskey's banjo player looked
like the bastard offspring of the Boston Bruins' Zdeno Chara and Brad
Marchand. My friends and I repeatedly referred to him as Zdeno
Marchand for the rest of their set.
-Blood or Whiskey's vocalist sounded
like South Park's impression
of Russell Crowe in the Season 6 episode The New Terrence and Phillip Movie Trailer on the show within a show
“Fightin 'Round the World with Russell Crowe” when he sang.
-Blood and Whiskey brought out from Spider Stacyt The
Pogues to do vocals on a song. She sang was singing this very mellow
melody for a majority of the song then for whatever reason at the
climax of the song she decided to let out a couple of screams that
were reminiscent of Slayer frontman Tom Araya's legendary screech in
the intro to “Angel of Death”. It was one of the strangest things
I've ever seen and was somehow the most awkward moment in a set with
no shortage of awkward moments.
Scores:
Blood or Whiskey 2.5/10
The Mahones 5/10
Dropkick Murphys 8.5/10
Setlist:
The State of Massachusetts
Famous for Nothing
Shattered
God Willing
Going Out in Style
Good Rats
Prisoner’s Song
Jimmy Collins' Wake
Tessie
Boston Asphalt
Wheel of Misfortune
Vengeance (Nipple Erectors cover)
Iron Chin (The Bruisers cover)
Alcohol (Gang Green cover)
Curse of a Fallen Soul
Do or Die (w/original vocalist Mike McColgan)
Memories Remain (w/original vocalist Mike McColgan)
Barroom Hero (w/original vocalist Mike McColgan)
The Auld Triangle
Never Forget
Rose Tattoo (acoustic)
I'm Shipping Up to Boston
Kiss Me, I'm Shitfaced
Encore:
Worker's Song
Skinhead on the MBTA
Takin' Care of Business (Bachman-Turner Overdrive cover)
We're An American Band (Grand Funk
Railroad cover)
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