LIVE REVIEW: Flogging Molly @ The Music Box, LA 6/6/11

June 09. 2011 | By Sharon Payne

Everyone needs to go to a Flogging Molly show at least once before they’re too old to appreciate a venue packed full of rowdy, sweaty, drunk guys yelling at the top of their lungs about how great it is to be Irish and how everyone else is shite. Much like any Irish pub in America on St. Patty’s Day, a Molly show demands jokes about who can out-drink whom and ranting about how the working man should fight to bring down the establishment. Molly’s front man, Dave King, delivered the Irish charm and the clichéd humor as he poked fun at the VIPs sitting in the balcony in cushy seats while the ‘meat and potatoes’ of the world were crowded into the lower floor.

Molly is touring in support of the release of a new album, Speed of Darkness [Borstal Beat], for the next few months through Europe, the U.S., and Canada. This is the band’s fifth full-length and it stays in line with their Irish rock roots but has a more mature spin and heavy themes of struggle strife.

As if there could be any doubt, the standard classics like “Rebels of the Sacred Heart,” ”Drunken Lullabies,” and “If I Ever Leave This World Alive” were crowd favorites for stomping, mosh-jigging, and singing to hoarseness. New soon-to-be-favorites “Speed of Darkness” and “The Power’s Out” were definitely well-received. Despite the somewhat showy Irish theme of the night, it cannot be said that a live Flogging Molly concert is anything but awesome. The band plays their asses off, the crowd is electric with energy and camaraderie, and it is always a memorable show.

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