Given the Bay State’s immutable ties to the Irish diaspora, the arrival of Celtic folk-punk icons Flogging Molly to the east coast is always cause for celebration for those in the area, who make the journey to Worcester’s Palladium – across the street, coincidentally, from a building with a sign bearing the name “The Irish Times” – on a cold night at the tail end of February. The mutual affection between Massachusetts and the band is palpable, and while their previous stop in the state was at a mostly-seated outdoor venue, this stop in Worcester with its open floor plan truly opens things up for a properly raucous evening.
The typically seven-piece band is reduced to six for this show, however, with Bridget Regan, fiddler and wife of frontman Dave King, sidelined by an unfortunate injury on the very first night of tour. King explains happily though that Regan will be rejoining them a few days later, and the crowd cheers to her speedy recovery. Beyond their own ranks, Flogging Molly arrives as they so often do with a wealth of friends, this time the drunken pub-punk singalongs of English outfit Skinny Lister, and the raw, excoriating gaze of Pittsburgh’s own long-running staple Anti-Flag, whose Chris “Chris No. 2” Barker spends almost as much time seven feet in the air leaping from his amp as he does on the stage. All of the above are part of a massive extended family of sorts, many of whom will take to the sea later in 2023 as part of Flogging Molly’s Salty Dog Cruise, which brings together dozens of musicians from various countries and different styles of music on a tour of the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea.
The band emerges from backstage to the sound of their song ‘There’s Nothing Left’ playing over the PA, and when the lyrics evoke the devil, King sticks his index fingers up on each side of his head in makeshift horns. The first song they opt for live comes fittingly from their debut album Swagger, ‘The Likes of You Again’, followed by the title track from that same record. During one of these initial songs, King places his guitar on its stand during an instrumental break, grabs a sip from a can – Guinness, of course – and circles back to pick up his instrument by the time he’s needed again. While the band tunes between songs, King raises a toast to the “resilient people” of Ukraine, whose bloody invasion by Russia has just recently entered its second year. He also dedicates a certain centrally-located finger to Vladimir Putin, just before the band launches into ‘A Song of Liberty’.
While it may be a frigid Tuesday on paper, the inside of the Palladium seems removed from such external factors as time and weather; the amount of crowd-surfing doubles even from Anti-Flag’s set, with three or even four people sailing on a sea of arms across the stage. Often they’ll be clapping in time to the drum beat as they go, defying expectations one might have about the rhythmic capabilities of those both inebriated and airborne.
A particular favorite early in the set is ‘The Hand of John L. Sullivan’, named for the famous Boston boxing champ. After that tune, King points up to the balcony and shouts out some friends in attendance whom he hasn’t seen in thirty years, and the spotlight shines onto the party of four who wave back down from behind the railing. In a similar vein, he says the next song, ‘No Last Goodbyes’ – from the band’s 2022 album, Anthem – is a celebration of being able to all congregate together once again after such a long period of isolation in the preceding years. This undercurrent runs through the entire show, and there’s a familial feeling, a sense of belonging, that everyone in attendance shares: being known in a way even to people who don’t know you, a joyous celebration for its own sake.
Even sans Regan’s fiddle, the band are at their level best with their blend of classic and modern instrumentation to create the sound that has defined their music for more than twenty years. ‘Drunken Lullabies’ – one of the cuts that froths up the crowd most throughout the night – is a perfect example of this, with Spencer Swain’s banjo starting off unfettered, then quickly being electrified and joining the noisy wail of guitarist Dennis Casey as the song hits its opening stride, alongside the accordion of Matt Hensley. With this unique blend of influences, the band have crafted a discography full of songs that are already modern Celtic classics in their own right, as well as putting together overwhelmingly-heavy hitters like ‘Crushed (Hostile Nations)’ in more recent years.
They also showcase a few more Anthem tracks, including “Life Begins and Ends (But Never Fails)”. King speaks on the origins of the song, first asking who among the audience might have claim to some Irish ancestry, a query which of course is answered loudly by a wealth of those in attendance. He says that this song is dedicated to the resilience of those ancestors, a shanty-like tune for those who once set sail across the sea to another continent to have their hand in shaping the place Flogging Molly plays on this very night.
The closing songs of the main set are chiefly centered around some of the band’s most beloved material, including ‘Seven Deadly Sins’, ‘What’s Left of the Flag’, and finally the emotional zenith in ‘If I Ever Leave This World Alive’. To massive cheers, King toasts the crowd once again with a sláinte, and returns minutes later accompanied only by a couple cans of Guinness which he lobs gently into the front rows of the crowd. Before beginning the next song, he relaxes and speaks a bit about the origins of the band, and flying to the USA in 1989 – the mention of the year sees him feign a wince of pain on account of how long ago it was. He brandishes his acoustic guitar once again and begins to play “Black Friday Rule”, one of the earliest works the band ever put together.
One would be forgiven for thinking that he’s squirreled away a backing vocalist or three somewhere, but the accompaniment is solely from the crowd, who know every word to this Swagger-ing centerpiece. The band rejoins and prepares their instruments behind him, and by the finale of the song they’re all playing together once again. And even as the night concludes, with Monty Python’s ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ coming over the house speakers, King and the band remain onstage embracing each other, singing and whistling along to the song, and tossing picks out to the audience, all on each side of the divider seeming to want to linger in that room for just one more moment.
