Dropkick Murphy’s St. Patrick’s Day Tour
With a packed venue, the Dropkick Murphys rolled up for their St Patrick’s Day Tour 2025 at The Baycare Sound in Clearwater, Fl. with special guests, Teenage Bottlerocket and The Menzingers. It was my first show at the Baycare Sound, and the venue was beautiful down by the water in Clearwater. There was more green in the crowd than at a St. Patrick’s Day pub crawl, and the merch line was longer than a bathroom line during one as well! Hundreds of Murphy fans gather to see a show that has now become a viral sensation from frontman Ken Casey’s bet with MAGA supporters in the crowd. We will touch on that later, but first, let’s light up the sky with fireworks.
The Teenage Bottlerocket (TBR) is a skate punk style band out of Laramie, Wyoming. If anyone was around for the era of skate punk in the 90s, you’d know how great of a scene it was and how gnarly the music was. While some say TBR has a Ramones-style vibe, I get more Guttermouth without their controversial lyrics. TBR came out swinging and hit hard, despite frontman and cofounder Ray Carlisle stating later in the show that they’re in their 40s and getting too old for shows. Ray mentioned that when they watch shows at the smaller and popular local venues amongst punk and metal bands, The Brass Mug, they just stand in the back and watch the show, and I can’t tell you how real that is. As a millennial, I’ve spent my fair share of years in the pit, fighting for my square foot of viewing ground too many times now, and I’ll take a seat at a show over that. Despite that,t though, TBR still brought the energy. Ray regularly jumped, doing mid-air kicks like he was playing a Quidditch version of soccer. With short and fast-paced songs that last less than 3 minutes, you get the old school punk vibes of the 90s.
Next up on the block was The Menzingers (TM). Despite vocalist Tom May looking like he’s fresh from teaching a college class, he kept the vibes up, and TM played a phenomenal set. I’ve never been a big TM fan, and it’s not because of their lack of talent or vocals. I’ve always felt that their vocals were too good for the punk scene. Super clean and crisp sounding vocals with amazing range and harmony is how they sound. While I’ll admit I wasn’t a huge fan of their music, they put on a great show. Ken went on to say later that it was their first tour ever with TM and what a talent and great group they were, and I couldn’t agree more.
With mic in hand, Ken Casey of the Dropkick Murphys (DKM) came blasting out of the darkness. Even with Al Barr, the other vocalist in DKM, still on hiatus from the band for personal reasons, DKM sounded amazing and performed beautifully. The night had a few memorable moments outside the regular seeing DKM perform moments.
Amongst the crowd, a family of a huge fan of DKM had requested a special song for their family member who had just passed away. While the song “The Fields of Athenry” is one of my top 5 all-time favorite songs by DKM, it wasn’t the way I had hoped to hear the song live. I will say, though, that it felt incredibly moving, and the love was in the air, and while I can’t speak for the family, I will say we all sent off a fallen fan together. It really felt special, especially when DKM dedicated the next song, Forever, to those whom they love and miss. Forever has always been my favorite song by DKM (we even played it at my wife and I’s wedding), and hearing it live was an emotional moment. I was mid, photographing from the pit, and just stopped to listen and sing along. As I walked through the crowd, lighters and lights filled the air, along with other concertgoers singing along.
Fast forward from high emotions to the now infamous MAGA moment. I’ve never been one for politics, both sides do things make your head shake, but even if that scale is tilted, I think both sides forget the big picture, we’re all in this country together and we all belong and deserve to live your life the way you want to do so, as long as it’s legal. Being a former military soldier who fought in a war, I think people also forget that we fought for freedom. We didn’t fight for left vs right but fought for everyone, and DKM stands for that as well. They’re for Americans. They’re for the working class and unions, and DKM reminded just that to the MAGA supporters.
My favorite thing was one little thing Ken said: he mentioned that America is a free country and it’s their right to wear those shirts and hats, and despite DKM being anti-Trump, they can still wear that to their shows and no one should mess with them about it. It’s their right. The two concertgoers were great sports about the friendly wager to see if the shirt and hat were made in America and if they were, DKM would give them $100 and a DKM shirt that’s proudly made in America and if not they had to surrender the shirt and put on something American made. Lo and behold, the shirt was made in Nicaragua, and the owner took off the shirt and threw it on stage. The hat had no tag, Ken said so by default it wasn’t made in the US, but made it a draw and threw the shirt for the fan. I think it’s important to remember that whether you're Democratic or Republican or anything in between, we’re all humans, and love is stronger than hate any day, but back the show we go!
DKM continued to blast through their set of amazing songs like The State of Massachusetts and closing out with the Worker’s Song. I was left with a nostalgic feeling and just absolutely happy to be a fan of punk music and Irish folk music again. It was an amazing show, which makes me wonder this: if DKM in Florida had nearly 90% of the crowd wearing green, how epic would a show in Boston be during St. Patrick’s Day? I can only imagine.
There are still a few stops left on their tour, not to mention the co-headlining tour with Bad Religion later in the summer!
