Fewer puppets, more moshing for Dropkick Murphys
Following a year of performing to virtual audiences due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Dropkick Murphys were ready to hit the road again once it was declared relatively safe to do so. So the punk band teamed up with its longtime friends in Rancid to relaunch the previously announced “Boston to Berkeley II Tour,” which will wrap up this month with a trio of performances in Southern California.
“We have such a history,” Dropkick Murphys bassist and vocalist Ken Casey said during a recent phone interview. Rancid vocalist and guitarist Tim Armstrong originally signed the Massachusetts-based band to his Epitaph Records offshoot, Hellcat Records, in 1997. Dropkick Murphys’ debut full-length, “Do or Die,” was produced by Rancid guitarist Lars Frederiksen.
“It’s nice to be on tour with people that you feel comfortable with, and it’s just a good vibe,” Casey continued. “Any time we can tour with bands like that, it just makes it that much more special and with us, and our old history, this is extra special.”
The tour, which is sticking to outdoor venues, will hit the Observatory OC Festival Grounds in Santa Ana on Saturday and Gallagher Square at Petco Park in San Diego on Sunday, then wrap up at the Shrine Auditorium Grounds in Los Angeles on Oct. 16. Each venue has its own list of health and safety measures, including clear bag and COVID-19 vaccination policies, so if you’re going, be sure to check the venue websites prior to the show date.
Fans will get to hear new music from Dropkick Murphys, who released “Turn Up That Dial” in April. Mostly written during lockdown, the album is upbeat and focuses on the importance of music in tumultuous times. Casey said it wasn’t too difficult to try to look on the brighter side of things, simply because he needed an escape from all the bad news.
“Mentally, you just had to put yourself in that place and you had to imagine a lot of the time, thinking of all the music and songs that inspired us,” he said. “It was a lot of looking back at happier times. The good times will come again and are already coming again right now.”
Since the band was still looking to create, but not spread COVID-19 among its crew over the past year, Casey said they had the brilliant idea to use puppets in their music videos and even for a little colorful commentary during the livestreamed events.
“You can never have enough puppets in your life, you know,” he said with a laugh. He admits that he was probably the most enthusiastic about bringing the puppets onboard for the band’s “H.B.D.M.F.” video and that in the past he’d done a tour where he’d only speak through a puppet, and “the band was ready to put me into a place that I couldn’t get out of at night.”
“We did a lot of cartoon videos and puppets for an important reason,” he said. “Puppets and cartoon characters don’t get COVID.”
During the thick of the lockdown, Dropkick Murphys performed four livestreamed performances, including two St. Patrick’s Day shows in 2020 and 2021, an album release show and an empty Fenway Park gig in Boston, which virtually included a guest appearance by Bruce Springsteen, who performed “American Land” and joined the band for its “Rose Tattoo.”
“That was a special day we won’t soon forget,” he said of performing at Fenway. Though the band has played inside the ballpark before, this time was unique: While the livestream was free, it was also a fundraising effort that raked in over $750,000 for the Boston Resiliency Fund, Feeding America and Habitat for Humanity in Greater Boston.
“That was the icing on the cake of the whole thing,” he said. “Our manager kept running across the stage with the totals and he was like ‘$750,000!’ and I was like, ‘Does he have an extra zero on that? What’s he talking about?’ It was pretty awesome and it makes you proud to know you have people like that in your corner.”
Casey said the virtual gigs were important, but for a band that is used to inviting dozens of its fans up onstage and braving mosh pits to get down and dirty with the crowd every night, playing to a single camera was hard to wrap their heads around.
“You have to adjust mentally to that,” he said, noting that he wouldn’t rule out more livestreaming performances in the future. “You just tell yourself that when you look at the camera, there are these other people on the other side of that watching you. Mentally it’s hard because we’re so lucky to have a fan base that’s energetic and enthusiastic and we just feed off of that, but when a song ends and there’s no applause and no one to interact with it’s like, ‘Eh, OK.’ You just have to work that much harder. Now though, going back to these shows, it feels like a piece of cake.”
He said the band can feel the crowds releasing pent-up energy, but Dropkick Murphys are still being cautious, playing these shows only outdoors and not inviting people onstage. They’re also not venturing out into the audience just yet.
“Hey, if us and the fans can get 90% of normal, that’s better than what we’ve had,” he added.