When Flogging Molly frontman Dave King took the stage at Buffalo’s Outer Harbor to a sold-out crowd and encroaching gray storm clouds, he pronounced, in his thick Irish accent, “There’s a storm a’brewin! In more ways than one!” Indeed, at that time, it appeared as though the audience would be face a storm of live music, and one of rain and thunder.
But thankfully, unlike the cancellation of the originally scheduled Tragically Hip show on July 19, the audience got more of the former storm, with most of the rain coming in spurts and brief showers. Originally billed as a show for Celtic rockers, featuring Flogging Molly and The Lowest of the Low, the Aug. 2 show at the Outer Harbor was rearranged to fit in a make-up performance from the Hip. The result was a massive rock bill and a massive audience, with older Hip fans, and teen and twenty-something Molly fans, often dressed in green and/or kilts.
Though rain appeared eminent, Flogging Molly tore through a blazing set of super-charged, Celtic-laced punk rock. With songs like the opener, “Likes of You Again,” King lulled the audience with his gentle Celtic charm, aided by the melodic timbre of violin, banjo and accordion, all of which were featured prominently in his eclectic, seven-piece rock band. Other songs, like “Drunken Lullabies,” “Selfish Man” and new tune, “Revolution,” saw King chanting along to foot-stomping punk rhythms. The audience responded with Irish jigs that would have looked totally outlandish at almost any other rock concert. King engaged his fans with short anecdotes on the meanings and origins of certain songs, praise for concertgoers who flew Irish flags and admiration for two or three redheads in the audience. But the real interest of King’s love-life was behind him; the frontman is married to bandmate Bridget Regan, who plays fiddle, tin whistle and vocals.
After blazing out with early hits like “Tobacco Island, “What’s Left of the Flag” and “Seven Deadly Sins,” Molly left the stage open for The Tragically Hip’s make-up set. Under a wash of blue and purple spotlights, the Hip punched through a set that at times soothed, and at times scathed.
In a dress shirt, black vest and black fedora, frontman Gordon Downie sometimes cooed the audience into comfort, but seemed to prefer his dramatic snarl and middle-aged angst. He took one mid-show break to rage against violence and homophobia, saying “violence isn’t right! Violence is mindless!” and comparing general forms of intolerance against gays to this mindless violence. Throughout the night, the band’s guitar-work was intricate and layered, and the bass was surprisingly low and rumbling.
This combination of artful and abrasive put the band somewhere between the gentle, uplifting alt-rock of R.E.M. and the brooding, brutal force of Tool, with a good measure of the Smashing Pumpkins thrown in. Downie blew through Hip favorites, such as “Poets” and “Fire in the Hole,” never stopping or appearing even fazed by the inconsistent streams of rain pouring in from off the lake. He repeatedly thanked the “music-lovers” for sticking around in spite of the night’s cold wind and colder rain, and the band needed only a quick dry-off of their instruments before retaking the stage for the encore, playing favorites like “Courage” and “Little Bones.”
Perhaps the rain encouraged some concert-goers to leave early and beat the traffic, but most seemed not to care. They were too caught up in the storm of hard rock.
Flogging Molly Set List:
Likes of You Again
Swagger
Revolution
Selfish Man
Whistles the Wind
Drunken Lullabies
Kilburn High Road
Saints and Sinners
Requiem for a Dying Song
Float
Tobacco Island
Devil’s Dance Floor
If I Ever Leave This World Alive
What’s Left of the Flag
Seven Deadly Sins
The Tragically Hip setlist:
At Transformation
Grace
My Music at Work
In View
Man Machine Poem
Gift Shop
Ahead by a Century
Streets Ahead
Poets
We Want to be It
Fully Completely
Bobcaygeon
New Orleans is Sinking/Nautical Disaster
Fire in the Hole
Blow
Encore:
At the Hundredth Meridian
Courage Little Bones
All Photos by BackstageAxxess Correspondent Kris Gelder.
We would like to thank Jenn Pressey from Bernie Breen Management for the Tragically Hip Credentials and Jessica Ritch at After Dark for her assistance in the Flogging Molly credentials.
