Good news: The Dropkick Murphys AND The Mighty Mighty Bosstones AND a couple of Bruins AND the Stanley Cup all showed up at Fenway Park last night and the city of Boston didn’t self-implode! Sadly, I missed shows that at least 6 of my dearest friends were playing. Sigh. C’est la vie.
Photo: Sooz!
The Dropkick Murphys, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Tons Of Other People at Fenway Park: I’m going to write more about this a little later on, but let’s just say that the Dropkick Murphys did an amazing thing in raising $25,000 for victims of 9/11 from last night’s ticket sales alone. They’re back at Fenway tonight, but good luck getting in there as the joint’s 200% sold out. A shame, too, because last night was FUN. Say what you will about the Dropkicks, but I don’t know a ton of other punk/Oi!/Bahston-core bands that can deliver a fantastic acoustic set in the middle of a raucous arena show, and they did just that. Oh, and the Bosstones totally played that song from Clueless, so I was pretty stoked.
Girls Guns and Glory and Oldjack at Club Passim: Chad Ochocinco, though the newest self-proclaimed fan of the Boston-based country crooners, didn’t make good on his guest list spot last night, but that didn’t stop the boys from doing what they do best. Oldjack somehow crammed everyone in the band onto Passim’s tiny stage and rocked it. I missed the OJ set though and had the pleasure of getting half an ice cream sandwich shoved in my face by none other than Oldjack’s frontman Dan Nicklin, so I think I made out okay in the end.
The Wandas at Cafe 939: I love these boys. I love their new record. I do not love that I missed their show last night, but I don’t doubt that they charmed the pants off the whole damn Red Room. Internet, if we ever meet in real life, remind me to tell you about that time where me and the boys of The Wandas wound up shoving six people in the back of a cab in Logan Square and Chicago and we somehow wound up in the sketchiest diner in the Midwest around 5am. Yeah.
Big East, Banana Phonetic, Hayley Jane and the Primates at Church: Another show I hate to miss, seeing as these guys are a handful of my favorite people/dance partners/brothers from other mothers, etc. I could put a show I didn’t see into words, or I could let Justin (Big East drums) do it for me: “It’s interesting. So often people remark about how Big East gets written up for being ‘bar rock/whiskey-soaked rock n’ roll’--and then we get up on stage and people have bought us 3 shots of whiskey each and all the free Narragansett we can muster. I guess what they say is true.” For the record, when Justin and I were talking this morning and I asked how it went, his first response was “ugh … fuckin’ blargh, words are hard to put together,” so I assure you the hangover’s real.