A note to Dave King, frontman for Flogging Molly:
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| Scott Spychalski |
Hey, Dave. I've been a fan of your band since Swagger. I saw Flogging Molly the first time they came through the area, and you all played the Bottleneck with River City High and the Blue Meanies. Every show's been entertaining as hell (especially that tour with Andrew WK), and I was really happy to see you Sunday night at the Uptown, especially after having missed you the last few times you've been through and played the Beaumont.Long story short, though? You kept making fun of those of us sitting in the balcony, while you were playing onstage with a backdrop and full light show, and your band is sponsored by a corporation. I don't care if that corporation is the Guinness brewing company -- you're still acting like we're some kind of sell-outs because we wanted to sit, rather than stand downstairs. We don't want to get knocked in the head by a dancing fifteen year-old who doesn't watch where he's going. The last two times I saw Flogging Molly, I got hit in the head so hard, I couldn't form a complete sentence for nearly an hour.
Now, I'm allowing for the fact that I'm pissed off because the wife and I sat down about ten minutes after the doors opened in very good seats, only to be made to move about five minutes before the show started. Evidently, where we were sitting was for VIPs. They gave us some drink vouchers and scooted us away. I heard tell that it was most likely for Guinness people. Once again, so much for punk rock ethos.
The band was incredibly energetic, and the show was fantastic. The Irish punk thing Flogging Molly does is pretty much infinitely expandable, and I'm sure that it's a style that'll allow the band to keep making albums as long as they'd like. But the fact remains that even as they play larger and larger venues (from the Bottleneck to Granada to Beaumont to Uptown), the songs the fans want to hear come primarily from those first two records.
While Bridget Regan is a wonderful fiddler, and a lovely tin whistle player, her singing of Lucinda Williams' part on "Factory Girls" didn't get nearly the response that accompanied "Rebels of the Sacred Heart," "Drunken Lullabies," "Every Dog Has His Day," or "The Worst Day Since Yesterday" (thanks for breaking out that old number, by the way).
Honestly, at this point, a little Irish punk goes a long way. By the time Flogging Molly'd finished their set, I was ready to take another break from seeing them for a while. The songs start to blend together, and a lot of that newer stuff starts to sound like the older stuff, and I found myself unable to differentiate "Float" from whatever came next, and just wanted to go home.
On the bright side, the Architects took to the Uptown stage like they owned it. After an introduction of, "Here comes a bit of rattlesnake," from guitarist Keanon Nichols, the band ripped into "Here I Stand," and they didn't let up for a moment. This is despite the fact that frontman Brandon Phillips was obviously working through some vocal issues, as he was visibly struggling to keep his voice going through the set. Thankfully, set standards like "Don't Call It A Ghetto" and "Daddy Wore Black," as did "Reciprocity," which I can't recall having heard in any recent Architects' sets.
The boys also were kind enough to use the Uptown's sound system in the way it was meant to be used. The band's always been a big rock kind of group, and it's on stage and in a venue like this that their sound could really shine. They knocked out another mean version of AC/DC's "Sin City," dedicating it to the other bands on the bill, as well as those "old enough to know how cool it is...and if you're young: we wrote it." Those in attendance unfamiliar with the tune could be excused if they took that as the truth, as the Architects easily made it their own.
Openers Synthetic Elements sounded a lot like Less Than Jake or the River City Rebels. They were ska punk (or punk with horns, whichever you'd prefer). They had a siren and a red light that kept annoying me, and their sound, while competent, was nothing that hasn't been done over and over and over again. I probably would have loved them when I was 16 or 17, but at this point, I'm just going to agree with the gentleman who was walking past me when the band asked, "Do you guys wanna sing along with us?"
His answer? A resounding, "No."
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Flogging Molly seems to have a unique blend of cool music, just wish their politics didn't suck as much. But I guess that's what you get with punkers today. Can't seem to leave politics out of prefectly good music
i can't believe the architects trotted out that same lame joke about them writing that song at two shows back to back.
i would've rather taken another punch from some drunk frat boy who doesn't understand that a pit is all about give and take (which as much as i love FM that's what the crowd seems to be made up of these days) than sit through the architects.
it's like i was listening to music my 60 yr old dad would think is "rockin'"
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