Deciding to
go and see Dropkick Murphys in Manchester less than a week before they were due
to play there was perhaps a bit impulsive. It was by no means crazy, though.
What was crazy was using fly-by-night, brewery-piss-up-failure experts See
Tickets to secure a, err, ticket for the event. The ticket was “sent”
immediately and should have arrived in plenty of time. It didn’t, so I
contacted them and they said one would be left for me at the box office.
When the day
came, I arrived in a very cold Manchester and made my way to the HMV Ritz. This
was also a cause for worry, as the collapse of HMV had been reported the
previous day and I fully expected the venue to already have been converted into
fancy luxury apartments. This was thankfully not the case, so I queued at the
box office, full of anticipation.
See Tickets
(from now on in my mind: See You Next Tuesday Tickets) had “forgotten” to
contact them so I had no ticket, along with four other people who were waiting
and having their patience pushed to the limit. This was an ideal time to have a
rant with four strangers so I took full advantage. Two girls from Liverpool,
one of whom spoke with a German accent, were very upset indeed. Not as upset as
Stan Boardman would be if he found out Germans were living in his city. He
would turn in his grave if he were dead, which he isn’t. Unfortunately.
A very kind
man who resembled Crab Man from My Name Is Earl phoned the ticket bastards and
eventually let us all in after a wait of around 45 minutes. Due to this I
missed most of Crowns, a Cornish folk-punk band. Luckily, what I did hear wasn’t
that great so I didn’t feel cheated in any way.
Next up were
pop-punkers Teenage Bottlerocket who I’d never heard before. They came onstage
to Slayer’s South of Heaven, which is tough to follow, but they managed it.
Energetic song after energetic song, sounding like the result of an unholy
union between The Misfits and The Ramones ensured 45 minutes felt like 5. The
two guitarists attempted to play a two part harmony solo with their guitars
behind their heads which didn’t work at all, but it was all good fun. Everyone
in the building seemed to be in better spirits, particularly a drunk man in
front of me who must have fallen over about 20 times during their set. Maybe it
was him that kept emitting rancid farts which ultimately forced me to move?
Bastard.
Dropkick
Murphys took to the stage just before 9:30 and opened with The Boys Are Back
from their latest album. Plastic pint glasses were thrown in the air as the
crowd sang along and danced and pogoed around the room. They played pretty much
the whole of the new album, with the exception of Christmas song The Season’s
Upon Us (why is there a Christmas song on an album which was released in early
January anyway?). The only two songs I absolutely had to hear were The Irish
Rover and Citizen CIA and they duly obliged. Ken Casey seems to be involved in
a quest to become the world’s roundest man and Al Barr now permanently hides
his baldness under a flat cap, but they can still rock for old men. 90 minutes of fun and the band skipped
normal show-finisher Kiss Me, I’m Shitfaced in favour of new number End of the
Night which seemed more fitting. They then followed that with a reasonable
cover of AC/DC’s Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap for some reason. A guy standing
near me obviously approved and elected to scream “fucking yes, you fuckers” at
the band for their efforts.
A cold walk
back to the station and a two hour train journey followed, but it was totally
worthwhile. Fucking yes indeed.
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