Irish and punk-rock heritage came together at the Myth in Maplewood last Sunday Nov. 11th for a rocking good time.  The Dropkick Murphys brought their unique style of celtic punk through town, complete with bagpipes. The Murphys had veteran celtic rockers The Tossers and a younger band The Briggs in tow as openers.

 The Tossers started the night off with a set of more tradtionally style songs.  I personally cannot wait to get into the Tossers; they're a band I had heard of before, but never listened to in-depth.  They were amazing though, and it's easy to get into the music even if you're not familiar with it.  Very good for moshing too, I might add. The Briggs brought more of a pop-punk based set to the stage.  Still tossing in celtic-themed songs and ideas, the band was a 4-piece of 2 guitars, drums, and bass.  All in all, The Tossers and The Briggs were great as opening bands.

 It wasn't long after The Briggs left the stage that the club was filled with chants of "Let's go Murphys!" When the tme came, the lights went off, and a tradtional celtic song sang with female lyrics was played over the speakers.  During this intro, The Murphys took the stage to a resounding ovation.  They began the set with "Famous for Nothing," the first song off their new album "The Meanest of Times." They played several songs off the new album including "The State of Massachusetts," "God Willing," and "Flannigan's Ball." They also played many of their old standbys, including "The Warrior's Code," "Captain Kelly's Kitchen," and "The Wild Rover." Their Boston Red Sox anthem "Tessie" got mixed reactions.  Some of the punks in the crowd could care less about baseball, others went nuts at the mention of this year's World Series Champions, and some showered the band with cries of "This is Twins territory!"

The crowd was absoluetly nuts.  The whole front half of the floor was a non-stop mosh.  This was a good thing, because I cannot think of a better concert to mosh at.  Unfortuneatly for me, one of my friends I was with nearly passed out being up close, and we had to leave the floor half-way through their set.  Being off the floor did give us a better view of the band on stage. The seven-man ensemble was alive and kicking on-stage, with the exception of Scruffy Wallace on bagpipes.  It would be rather difficult to be rocking out on stage with the bagpipes.

The band ended their main set with "One for the laides," as they played their ultimate drinking song, "Kiss me I'm @*#%faced."  The band had not even left the stage after their main set before the "Let's go Murphys! One more song!" chants started.  I headed back onto the floor just in time for the band to come out with arguably their most popular song, "I'm Shipping up to Boston." After this song, the band and security started letting fans come on-stage to jump around and sing into the five microphones set-up on stage.  I rushed the stage along with every other fan in the house, and got the security gate in front of the stage before being stopped when the stage was full of fans.

 The Dropkick Murphys put on a hell of show for the packed Myth Nightclub.  Their style of rousing, eneretic, celtic punk kept the crowd not just off their feet, but in the air, running in circles, into each other, on top of other fans, on the ground, and so on.  All in all, it was an amazing show, and I cannot wait until they come to town again.