Photos and Review by Jeff Palmucci
Galleries: Dropkick Murphys, The Menzingers
Dropkick Murphys just finished up their annual St Patrick’s day run of show in Boston this week. I’ve been to many, many of them before, and wasn’t about to miss this one. I was at the Friday night show at MGM near Fenway, where the band was just starting their Boston run.
The Menzingers were up before DKM and put up a set that drew heavily on their 2023 album Some of It Was True. However, they did of course play a lot of their hits including one of my favorites I Don’t Want to be an Asshole Anymore. They put on a really animated show with a call out especially to Tom May, who looked like he was having a blast onstage. Check out the photos below:
DKM then came out for their first Boston show to a huge home crowd welcome. If you’ve never been to a Boston DKM show, you owe it to yourself to get out there. These guys take crowd involvement to a whole new level, we lead Ken Casey spending more time than not right in front of, and even in, the crowd. Ken was putting the microphone in front of people up front and high fiving crowd surfers as they came over the top. These guys work with the crowd so well, that their shows feel more like a party than a concert.
Friday was their second annual union night, where they gave out free tickets to union members and included a pre show. They even had one of the members come up to sing the female lead part on The Dirty Glass.
And this brings me to another point. These guys have never been shy about being political. Come on, they’re a punk band. That is a big part of what punk is about. They’ve been getting a lot of press lately about calling out a MAGA dude in the crowd for waving his hat around. What did you expect from a punk band that supports unions after all the shit that is going on in the federal government? He did make some NSFW comments about the current administration that night (“I can’t believe I dropped the c-word in front of a nun.”), and I thank god there’s some backbone in people for standing up against all the stupidity that is going on in our government today.
Well, that’s my rant. Loved the show. The next DKM show in Boston will be at the Seisiún festival at Suffolk Downs in September. Go see it. And leave your f-ing MAGA hat at home.