Supporting their latest album “The Meanest of Times,” the Boston-bred punk band Dropkick Murphys belted out Celtic-charged songs in front of a sold-out crowd at the Wiltern in Los Angeles Friday night.
Opening for the DKM were three bands, The Tossers, Filthy Thieving Bastards and a more anticipated band, The Briggs, which got the audience pumped by performing favorites like “3rd World War” off their 2003 album “Numbers” and “Waiting in the Shadows” off their 2004 EP “Leaving the Ways.”
After the opening acts, loud chants of “Let’s go, Murphys!” filled the small and crowded theatre with a sea of hands raised and clapping on accord, anticipating the arrival of the night’s biggest band.
The Dropkick Murphys are unique because they fuse hard-hitting punk melodies and lyrics about social change, family, Irish culture and their hometown of Boston with traditional Irish instruments such as a mandolin, bouzouki, tin whistle and, most noticeably, bagpipes.
The band hit the green-lit stage full of energy and smiles as they greeted their charged-up fans and opened with a few songs from “The Meanest of Times” like “Famous for Nothing” and “Never Forget,” which are about family, friends and growing up under rough circumstances.
The fans, who didn’t mind being Irish for the night, got riled up when the DKM played favorites like “Heroes From Our Past” from their 2001 album “Sing Loud, Sing Proud” and “Tessie” from their 2005 album “The Warrior’s Code.” As mosh pits started up, T-shirts and cold beer began flying through the air.
Midway through the show, Boston-accented front man Al Barr encouraged the audience to sing along as the band performed the heartfelt tribute song “Your Spirit’s Alive,” which they dedicated to a close friend, Greg “Chickenman” Riley, who was killed in a motorcycle accident.
The stage then became packed with singing teenage girls and women from the audience as the DKM serenaded their fans with “Kiss Me I’m Shit Faced,” a classic from their 2003 album “Blackout.”
During a short intermission, the crowed again chanted “Let’s go, Murphys!” for about five minutes before the band returned to the stage to rock the audience with “Shipping Up to Boston,” which has received much recognition since it was featured in Martin Scorsese’s Academy Award-winning film'”The Departed.”
The DKM ended the night by performing “Skinhead on the MBTA” fromtheir 1998 album “Do or Die” as the stage again filled with rowdy mohawked, drunk and kilted fans from the audience who moshed, sang into the microphones and chanted along with the Dropkick Murphys.
