Dropkick Murphy's perform a show in Bangor, B+

This past week, Boston punk rockers headlined a show with Rancid at Bangor's Waterfront Pavilion in Maine. It was the first night of the tour, and the band was indeed ready to rock.

It's always great to see a band that has so much energy like the Dropkick Murphy's. It's another to see them on an opening night of their tour, with Rancid. "We've been looking forward to this tour for a long time, let's get ready for a great night!" proclaimed Ken Casey earlier on in the set. The two groups were almost meant to tour with each other, as they both started out around the same time and are legendary icons in punk music. Despite some things that had some negative aspects for the show, the Dropkick Murphy's still killed it, proving they are still a dominant force in Rock N Roll today.

It wasn't a perfect concert this past Thursday night at the Darling's Waterfront Pavilion in Bangor, but it was still good none the less. Part of this reason why the show wasn't perfect was because of the torrential down poring rain earlier on, and for an outdoor general admission venue in the summer, that's almost never a good thing when a concert is happening. Despite the rain, concert goers still fled to the venue. It was surprising to see a great mixture of both young and old fans in the crowd, showing that bands like Dropkick Murphy's and Rancid have a long history but at the same time, can still be relevant in today's music world.

Another big interesting fact about the show was that Dropkick Murphy's headlined instead of Rancid, which was a bit different then what the concert was advertising. However, it was obvious that the Murphy's have an incredible influence over New England, and have pure fan power across the East Coast with the group hailing from Boston, with Rancid of course, belonging to the West.
The Murphy's set list was also a surprise for the first night of the tour. One of the negatives about the set was how short it was-almost under an hour an half, but tat the same time, the band managed to put everything they had in that short amount of time.

It was one thing for sure that everyone knew as the night continued. While Dropkick Murphy's knew they were playing in Maine, they were, are and always will be Massachusetts boys It was a bit touching to see how much the band respected their state throughout the night.

While the set list did include some old favorites, it was a bit all over the place in terms of old and new songs. What was most surprising about the set list was the increased amount of covers the band played, which of course, was an interesting aspect in itself especially when they played their own version of Folson Prison Blues by Johnny Cash at the end. However, the best cover they performed that night was an impressive version of The Clash's I Fought the Wall, and almost equally as good, AC/DC's TNT.

It was great to see Rancid perform Dropkick Murphy's as well during the encore when both of these groups performed the covers.

Throughout the night, the best thing about the performance was by far the sound. You could hear everyone in the band extremely well no matter where you were standing out in the field which was a highlight all by itself.
Of course, the band played everyone's favorite I'm Shipping Up to Boston, as well as Blood and a few other classic Murphy's songs. However, the set list was missing some tunes that would have made the night even better.
Even so, it was well worth the trip up to Bangor to see Dropkick Murphy's in high spirits and extremely high energy the first night of their From Berkeley to Boston tour with Rancid.

B+

Setlist: Dropkick Murphy's, Thursday July 27, Darling's Waterfront Pavilion, Bangor, ME

1) The Lonesome Boatman

2) The Boys Are Back

3) Hang em High

4) Blood

5) I Had a Hat (Traditional Cover)
6) Rebels with a Cause

7) Out of our heads

8) Going out in Style

9) Payin gMy Way

10) Barroom Hero

11) You'll Never Walk Alone (Rodgers & Hammerstein cover)

12) Rose Tattoo

13) The State of Massachusetts

14) Johnny, I hardly Knew Ya

15) I'm Shipping Up to Boston

16) Until The Next Time

Encore

17) Cretin Hop (Ramones Cover with Rancid)
18) I Fought the Law) The Crockets cover) With Rancid

19) Folsom Prison Blues (Wich Rancid)

20) TNT (With Rancid)