Review: Dropkick Murphys @ AEC Theatre (Adelaide)

Dropkick Murphys
Senior Writer
James is trained in classical/operatic voice and cabaret, but enjoys and writes about everything, from pro-wrestling to modern dance.

In the wake of the re-election of Donald Trump, Ken Casey, founder of Celtic punk rockers Dropkick Murphys, said the band is looking for a new place to live for the next four years.

Given the raucous reception to DKM's drinking, fighting, and rebelling songs, they'd be welcomed with open arms and cold pints in Adelaide. Dropkick Murphys, named after an alcohol rehab centre, have undergone plenty of line-up changes since Ken Casey founded them to win a bet in 1996.

Ken has been on full-time vocal duties since 2022 while co-vocalist Al Barr cares for his mother, who has Lewy Body dementia. Since a motorcycle accident took his bass playing from him, Ken now roams the stage and fires up the pit, handing microphones to crowd surfers so they can roar the pub-sing-along lyrics.

Having established a successful formula early on of combining hardcore punk with Celtic instruments like the bagpipes, tin whistles, fiddles, and banjos, DKM have remained faithful to the sound that rings out every St Pat's Day.

Since their inception, DKM have proudly aligned themselves with left-wing and union political causes; Billy Bragg has opened for them previously, their biggest single 'Shipping Out To Boston' features lyrics from Woody Guthrie, the fascist-killing Dylan-progenitor whose unused lyrics were the foundation for their last two albums, 2023's 'Okemah Rising' and 2022's 'This Machine Kills Fascists'.

Aside from Ken expressing his desire to leave the US for four years, the band let their music do the talking last night at AEC Theatre (15 November).

Their latest single, 'Sirens', is an astute encapsulation of the underlying causes of our rupturing social cohesion: "The billionaire profits while the worker bleeds, one per cent of the wealth hoards from millions in need, we're fightin' for the scraps, we struggle and suffer, we're fallin' for the trap, we're turnin' on each other."

With their anthems, DKM brought unity. With their closing time ditty, ‘Kiss Me I'm Sh.tfaced', grown men with lumberjack beards swayed with arms around their mates as they bellowed like a barmy army.

The band, often bathed in green light, taps into something primal: It's not hard to imagine similar scenes playing out on the night before a battle on a green Irish field.

While green Murphys t-shirts littered the crowd, there were plenty of black Alkaline Trio skulls stitched onto jackets too.

The emo pop-punk band, which formed in the same year as DKM and were on support duties last night, brought a different type of party as they raced through their hits like 'Mercy Me', 'Stupid Kid', and the appropriate-for-the-times 'Armageddon'.

On a night where The Amity Affliction played on the other side of the city, the healthy Friday night crowd showed '90s punk is not dead.

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