If you ever want to see a group of adults headbanging and mosh-pitting to punk Irish trad music, then I suggest you get your hands on some Flogging Molly tickets. Nottingham locals got their chance to crowd surf to the Celtic punk band when they played Rock City earlier this month.
The band is made up of several different instruments that reflect traditional Irish music while also encompassing a punk-rock aesthetic. Hailing from Los Angeles, California the band is fronted by Dave King who was raised in Dublin. King gained experience from performing with other bands such as Fastway before forming Flogging Molly. Following the creation of the band, King asked to be let out of his contract with Epic Records because “they wouldn’t know what to do with the new music anyways”. The band then went on to reach number 4 in the Billboard charts top 200 and number 1 on the Billboard indie chart.
The gig begins with the band energetically entering the stage and almost immediately you could feel the intense excitement of the crowd throughout the room. They launch into their first song ‘(No More) Paddy’s Lament’. In an interview guitarist Casey Denney revealed that this is a song of optimism for the future of Ireland. He said, “It’s sort of like a reply to ‘Drunken Lullabies’ from our 2002 album… (No More) Paddy’s Lament’ is about how there’s peace in Ireland now and prosperity and it’s a different place.”
Noting that they had never played Nottingham before, the band made sure that this one concert embodied that of five different concerts so that the audience could feel like they’ve been to every single one. They perform a range of songs from their most popular albums including ‘Drunken Lullabies’ and ‘Swagger’ while also playing tunes from their recent album ‘Life is Good’ which they released in 2017.
King, who grew up in Beggars Bush in Dublin for 17 years, introduced their song ‘Life in a Tenement Square’. Theatrically, the stage goes pitch black and as the instruments grow in intensity the lights fade up in sync. The individuality of each instrument was particularly prominent in this song and accompanied the passion this song makes you feel when played live. King and his wife, Bridget Regan come together how they started the song as they introduce the slowed down ending.
I enjoyed the personal touches throughout the gig. King never let a song go by without recalling the meaning behind each. His story telling throughout the gig lends a hand to his Irish heritage and I imagine the way he tells the stories of each song to the audience bears similarities to how he would tell his friends at the pub.
Speaking of pubs, King told us how he explored Nottingham in true Irish style: a pub crawl! He tells the crowd how he ended up in Ye Old Salutation (one of Nottingham’s oldest pub for all you non-locals). Recalling his day, he segways into their track ‘Float’ from their 2008 album.
Despite the energy and electricity of the gig, King never failed to capture the audience’s attention on an intimate note. Just over halfway through the gig he introduces a song about three very special people in his life; one of them being his late father. It was touching to see King and his wife take centre stage as they play the intro of ‘The Spoken Wheel’ while the other band members pay their respects at the back. Eventually the rest of the band joins King and Regan back on stage and they transition into ‘Black Friday Rule’ which offers a contrasting tempo to the previous song. The disparity in tempos that Flogging Molly experiments with shows a uniqueness that Celtic punk music has to offer. As the song plays a few members exit the stage leaving guitarist Ted Hutt and drummer Paul Crowder on stage to accompany each other in a dynamic riff. Hutt relishes the freedom of the stage as he paces it back and forth making his solo effortless yet tantalising.
King not only paid homage to his late father but also his late mother. The inspiration for their track and latest album name ‘Life is Good’ came from advice she gave him just before her passing in which she said, “Do me one favour, please promise me you’ll enjoy yourselves like I did”. And just like that he slides into the track. While the song begins softly, the pace begins to pick up as the drum adds that kick which encompasses the kick of life his mother wanted him to experience.
The gig rounds off with two of the band’s most popular songs ‘What Left of the Flag’ and ‘Seven Deadly Sins’. And, as the gig came to an end, the last few lads made their way to the surface of the crowd as they slid to the front while one triumphant mosh pit happened for the last time. Flogging Molly concluded the gig with the last burst of energy the crowd could take and ending it on a high for all.
Taylor's Guide To New Music 