Aeterna's Blog

Flogging Molly has been one of the bands I’ve loved for many years and a band that I keep coming back to. It’s outside of my normal genre, as they’re an irish folk rock band. In fact I’ve had people tell me they don’t believe I would listen to such music, nevermind love it like I do. This was the second time I’ve seen them, the first one being at Download Festival 2005 which is a metal festival and was an absolute blast, despite being at 9am.

When we arrived in the hall, the first thing I noticed was that unlike all the concerts I’ve been to over the years there were lots and lots of people wearing regular clothing. No black masses and band shirts, which struck me as really unusual. Of course there were a couple of people wearing Flogging Molly shirts and I did see 1 Graspop Metal Meeting shirt, but that was it. I felt kind of out of place.

Openers

The Mighty Stef

Video 1: Death Threats
Video 2: We Want Blood
Homepage: themightystef.com

Going into this I thought I was going to really dislike this group as the couple of songs I had listened to really bored me. As it turns out; they are a pretty good live band and they sure got some atmosphere going. Good communication with the crowd too, despite the crowd not really being into them. By the end you were really getting ready to rock out it felt like. Unlike their album songs I heard, there was so much more swing, fun and tempo in their performance. On top of that they had a really good and enthusiastic drummer.

The Minutes

Video 1: Black Keys
Video 2: Fleetwood
Homepage: theminutesmusic.com

From what I heard I expected a rather rocking show with vocals I didn’t like. What I got instead was something that bored me and the entire crowd. Everyone around me was just talking and you could actually hear the murmur from the crowd through the songs. Some people spoke to me about the vocals as they really disliked them, some even asking “Is there a cat getting skinned alive or something? Oh wait… it’s the band”. Needless to say; I have nothing positive to say at all about this performance, it ruined everything that The Mighty Stef set up.

Flogging Molly

Video 1: Drunken Lullabies
Video 2: Devil’s Dance Floor
Live 1: Drunken Lullabies
Live 2: Black Friday Rule mid-song jam
Live 3: Revolution/Worst Day Since Yesterday
Live 4: Rebels of the sacred heart
Live Outro: Always Look On The Bright Side of Life
Setlist: setlist.fm
Homepage: floggingmolly.com

At the moment the lights dimmed, the crowd went nuts. They instantly lived after The Minutes had bored them to death and I told the people I was with that I’d see them after the show since I knew what was coming. What was coming? Roughly half of the crowd would turn into 1 big crazy jumping/shouting mess and you’d move from 1 side of it to the next without really having much control over what was going on.

The above was true for nearly all songs, only 2 or 3 didn’t get too much reaction from the crowd, but in a way that’s good as you really need a couple of minutes to catch your breath. I remember being absolutely out of breath and checked my phone during one of those songs, there was still an hour to go. This came as quite a (welcome!) surprise, everyone at that point was looking around, waving their hands towards their faces to “cool down” a little. I’m just trying to convey just how energetic this concert was.

On a more serious note; There are a lot of great songs/lyrics and some of them mean a lot to me and helped me (and continue to do so) through some dark times and being able to yell my heart out is extremely satisfying. It’s one of the reasons why I love Flogging Molly; There’s the upbeat and happy tune with some dark and meaningful lyrics to them.

Needless to say, it was all 1 giant party and with 4,500 people singing along, it really does make your hair stand up straight. It’s an evening that will hang in your memory for many years to come, of that I can assure you. So do yourself a favor, if you like having a good time; go see these guys, you won’t regret it.

PS: The outcome of the concert consists of a busted lip, bruises all over from my legs to shoulders, an elbow to the temple and clothes that are completely drenched in beer and collected sweat of at least tens upon tens of people.