DKM & SOIA Show (and a nasty unrelated rant at the end...)

Matt and I saw the Dropkick Murphys (again!) with Sick of it All opening last night at Sound Advice Ampitheater in West Palm, FL.





God, I love SOIA. These veterans of good old-fashioned hardcore have been kicking ass since the 80's. THIS is how it's done, all you stupid cookie monster bands (go back to death-metal, Cookie!) These pushing-40 "grumpy old men", as they refer to themselves, were running around stage, lean and muscular, bristling with energy and sounding as good if not better than their recordings. Pete Koller, the grinning hunk with the spikey blond hair, was all over the place, a tattooed, hyperkinetic jumping blur.





The crowd was a writhing mass of limbs and crowd-surfing hotties in tank tops. (...and flip-flops. WTF? What is up with the kiddies wearing flip-flops to punk shows? Now I know these shows are pretty tame these days, but still! Ouch!)

The Dropkicks put on their usual high-energy show. They still sound great. "Sunshine Highway" is not the road I want to follow them down on, but I still love these guys and what they stand for. Some Bostonians associate their home with the sounds of Aerosmith. Not me. No matter how many Warped Tours or Conan shows these guys do they will always be a bunch of proud working-class stiffs from Boston. They were pulling kids in wheelchairs and on crutches up on stage to watch the show alongside tons of kids in Red Sox gear. The crowd was insane and filled with guys in Celtics shirts and Irish stuff. You cannot have a bad time at a DKM show, no matter who you are, no matter what your age, no matter what music you really like. It just cannot be done. (er, except for the big 400 lb. kid who passed out in front of us and had to be ambulanced off before they even came on...)

And they played "Skinhead." I didn't think they would...oh me of little faith. But as we walked towards the truck past the truly faithful in scally caps pumping fists in the air calling for the song...they ripped into it. We could hear the chorus growing louder and louder as we rolled down the windows. He may be lost forever in the streets of Boston...but the skinhead returns for every DKM show and I hope he always will.

Nasty Unrelated Rant:

So they finally made abortion illegal in South Dakota. I think they did it for the publicity. I mean, who gives a flying crap about South Dakota anyway?

What we need to do is get the hard-working immigrants who these right-wing facists hate so much to build a 50' high wall that starts from Orlando and extends all the way up to Canada, leaving out New England, NY, NOLA, WA, OR, and CA. We'll call it the National Federation of Nascar-Loving-Gun-Toting-Jesus-Freaks. We'll paint a huge target (or a huge crop circle?) in the middle with the words "Aim Here" in Arabic. Abortion won't cure overpopulation but maybe that will.

Or we can just bomb the Walmarts. Not that I have anything against the big-box bohemoth, but have you seen the majority of Walmart shoppers? Mouth-breathers, all of them. If you go there for a bargain, fine, but if you view Walmart as a pleasant recreation spot to visit with the entire family, you should have been aborted a long time ago.

How awful! That wasn't Politically Correct at all!!! (Isn't it odd that the concept of PC was created by the lefties in the 80's, now it is a sacred cow of the righties today?)

Attribute my surly behavior to my unhealthy breakfast this morning of 2 Ibuprofens and a liter of coffee, the crowning glory following last night's after-show meal of Guinness, Sam Adams, Jaeger and pizza. Or the fact that this country is F-CKED!