GIG REVIEW: Dropkick Murphys + Pennywise + The Rumjacks
+ Jesse Ahern, City Hall, Newcastle, Monday 16 January 2023
Dropkick Murphys used to be regular visitors to Newcastle, yet this long-awaited show – originally scheduled for February 2022 – is their first in the city for nine years.
The intervening period has brought much change for the Boston, MA Celtic punk mainstays.
Their studio output has proved a mixed bag, but more pertinent is the spine surgery that’s forced founding member Ken Casey to drop his bass and focus on mic duties.
With co-frontman Al Barr taking time out from the band to care for his ailing mother, Casey is currently Dropkick Murphys’ sole vocal lead – a shuffle he and his six bandmates step-up to gamely, though inevitably at the expense of some of their trademark dynamism.
Although they’d already gone some way towards polishing up their edges, it must also be said that they’re a far slicker outfit than that which rocked the old O2 Academy back in 2014.
It’s a fact displayed starkly during old favourites Barroom Hero and Boys On The Docks, both of which sound a world away from their rough ‘n’ ready street-punk origins a quarter-century back, which many fans still hold dear.
Thankfully, neither Dropkick Murphys’ social conscience nor political convictions have suffered any dilution. Indeed, several of tonight’s most forthright cuts have never felt more potent – All You Fonies, for instance, is a fiery and timely workers’ anthem extolling the virtues of unionism.
And their rendition of We Shall Overcome – an old labour song synonymous with the US civil rights movement of the ‘50s and ‘60s – is a passionate riposte to the politics of division, wrought by the twin scourges of Republicanism in their country and Conservatism in ours.
That the latter is aired on an evening when Martin Luther King Jr. would have celebrated his 94th birthday feels especially apt.
These steadfast views likewise define the band’s newest studio project. Their most surprising turn to date, last year’s This Machine Still Kills Fascists (reviewed here) was Dropkick Murphys’ first acoustic album, and saw them adapt unused lyrics and words from legendary protest singer Woody Guthrie to their own original music.
Beyond offering a novel change of pace, the record proved the band’s most rewarding endeavour in some time, and any fears they’d struggle to incorporate it into their ultra-energetic live show prove wholly wide of the mark.
In fact, two new numbers – the earthy Two 6’s Upside Down and aforementioned All You Fonies – are arguably the finest of the entire night; proof that while their peak years may be behind them, the band still harbour plenty of creative zeal.
Tonight’s show isn’t without its duds. The overly saccharine Queen of Suffolk County is among the weakest moments in their entire catalogue, while the most popular, I’m Shipping Up to Boston (an earlier use of Guthrie’s lyrics), while rapturously received, feels somewhat perfunctory, its energy driven by a bellowing audience rather than the band on-stage.
As they reel out guest vocalist Jaime Wyatt for closing gambit The Dirty Glass, however, the overriding verdict is of a mightily fun return, and one which – for better or for worse – stands apart from any Dropkick Murphys show the bulk of us have previously experienced.
At £42, though, tickets certainly didn’t come cheap – something the band were perhaps conscious of when enlisting a whopping three support acts. First up is fellow Massachusetts native Jesse Ahern,
who has the (dubious) honour of opening proceedings at 6:30pm, before half the audience will even have returned home from work.
Nevertheless, the singer-songwriter rises to the challenge of warming a quiet room, winning folks over with a cover of The Clash’s Bankrobber before keeping them invested during his own singalongs; eventually earning a warm ovation on the strength of big-hearted anthems such as To The Daughters Of The World and Highway Of Life.
Next up are Sydney, Australia’s The Rumjacks – one of a host of new generation Celtic punk acts who’ve emerged in the wake of tonight’s headliners. That a group of geneticists could spend years trying – and failing – to concoct a more perfect Dropkick Murphys support in their lab is both this six-piece’s greatest strength and weakness.
Certainly, tunes like A Fistful O’Roses and An Irish Pub Song do a fine job in getting the room bouncing, yet this tide of goodwill feels distinctly non-threatening, with zero prospect of overshadowing the two bands who follow.
To the surprise of nobody, the pick of the openers are Pennywise – who can perhaps count themselves unfortunate not to be billed as co-headliners.
With an influential career spanning over three decades, the Hermosa Beach, CA legends certainly do threaten to steal the show, evoking their ’90s prime whilst belying the reality of four men in their mid-50s.
Regardless of age, the scathing chords of 1997 commentary Society hit as hard as ever (“Which means two things: We’re old as fuck, and nothing fucking changes” – guitarist Fletcher Dragge), while in the absence of any full-blooded ragers from Dropkick Murphys, the song Pennywise (“by the band Pennywise, from the album Pennywise”) proves the speediest slice of pure punk all evening.
By the time they’ve signed off to the rapturous chants of Bro Hymn, their 45-minute slot feels insufficient, with many visibly and audibly thirsting for more. If only they hadn’t wasted five of those minutes playing punk-rock-jukebox!
