Dave King, the lead singer of Flogging Molly, ran out in front of the crowd- grabbed one of the cans of Guinness pre-staged atop amplifiers by the roadies, popped the top, took a swig, bounded and exuberantly cried into the microphone, “Good Evening you Bastards.” Over 6,000 concertgoers roared back, shoving elbows, in the cool breeze of Philadelphia’s Festival Pier as the fiddler Bridget Regan fell full force into the opening riff of “Another Bag of Bricks”.
The set was long, furious and fast-paced. Highlights were the uniting “Rebels of the Sacred Heart,” every set of lungs belted from the bottom of their stomach to shout, arms raised, “REBELS ARE WE.... / THOUGH HEAVY OUR HEARTS SHALL ALWAYS BEEEEEEEEEE....” < then the moshing forward > “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH NO BALL OR CHAIN NO PRISON SHALL KEEP / WE’RE THE REBELS OF THE SACRED HEAAAAARTT.” “Drunken Lullabies,” introduced by King as being for the “Irish Football Team- who sadly lost this week in the World Cup,” “Tobacco Island” “What’s Left of the Flag” (my new favorite) and- “Seven Deadly Sins” (my former favorite) all made riotous appearances. The sold-out crowd was amass of air-and-Guiness-gulping, profusely sweating violent movement towards the stage. And the bouncers earned their paychecks and then some with a steady stream of crowd surfers to bring back down to earth.
Though I have heard a good bit of Flogging Molly and about a dozen songs make my regular iTunes playlist- I was absolutely blown away by their live, in-person intensity. Every song, even the normally slower acoustic leanings of “What's Left of the Flag”, were faster than the last, frought with more energy and was reciprocated by more belting, jumping and shoving by the crowd. Their songs were tight, hardly any down time elapsing between one and the next and the hour-long set, overall, cast a warm light of appreciation on the band. They were enthusiastic, staggeringly coordinated given their assortment of musical instruments (fiddle to banjo to guitar drums bass and back) and full of loud prowess.
The band entered with a bang, left to tumultuous roar, and won over this celtpunk fan’s heart in spades.
Enter in the only “silence” of the night, if you can call 6,000 now well-lubricated (by Guiness, Smithwicks and Jameson) Irish-American, faux-Irish, Union boys, off-duty firefighters, cops, veterans and all manner of angry 18-30 year-old men chanting “Let’s Go Murphy’s” in unanimity, arms flexed, fists clenched and punching the cool night air overhead.
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