Concert Review - Dropkick Murphy´s at Gröna Lund

Dropkick Murphy´s at (the amusment park) Gröna Lund in Stockholm

The Place

Dropkick Murphy´s said they were proud that so many people showed up to see them on this particulary stage at Gröna Lund. Proud to be performing at the stage that been hosting performances from acts as Runaways, The Sweet, The Clash, The Who, The Eagles,AC/DC, Bob Marley, Iggy Pop, PIL and more (my note), Many of those band in their prime or in the early stages of their career. Bob Marley made one of his best concerts ever when he broke the attendance record in 1980. Murphy´s pointed out The Who, the Clash and Eagles as their heroes on that stage.

But that doesn’t tell the whole story. The fact that that stage been a place where those band been doing pretty lame or weak performances. Iggy Pop Ive seen way under his normal level, as same goes for The Ramones, Soundtrack of our Lifes and more. Beck did a completely disasterous dull performance there. So as well as proud they really should be alert.
after all, Gröna Lund is a rollercoaster, merry go round amusement park in the first place.

To make things ever worse. At the same time, a few hundred meters away, there was a Live broadcasting of one of Swedens most popular TV shows. A sing a long music show, “Allsång på Skansen”. It is possible that that made them play at a disturbingly low volume at first. But they fixed it a bit after half the show. Anyway the overall sound was far from perfect. Everybody knows what too low volume on the guitars does to punk rock.

Besides that most other things were great.

The Crowd

The Crowd was great and huge. The regular tourist visitors were by far outnumbered by Murphy´s fans, punks and rockers in general. Me and girlfriend spoke to some Murphy fans that seems to be from all over this part of the country. From places like Västerås and towns like that. And possible why the crowd was so jolly. If you read what I written before, you might remember that I whine a bit about the Stockholm crows tendency to be standing silence like statues at concerts. Here was the crowd loud, handclapping, fists in the air, dancing and mosh pitting all in a turmoil. The singalong factor was almost as high as it probably was at the singalong Tv show next to us. And the response from the audience seems to fuel up the Murphy´s. Because they managed, despise the low sound, the dull stage put on a high energy show.

The Songs

They played most of their well known songs as well as two new ones, "Tattoo Rose" and a song don´t know the name of.yet, except “ For Boston”, “Wicked and Sensitive Crew” and “Skinhead on the MBTA”. The last mentioned, possibly because that the park security didn´t allowed the crowd to go onstage as usual during that song. A fact that made the bass playing singer Ken Casey go into the crowd singing "Kiss me I´m Shitfaced". Sometimes sitting on some ones shoulders, sometimes drowned in the crowd, sometimes crowd surfing, a peak of the performance. Its Celtic, its working class and punk all in the same. Florence Reece old “Which side are you on” are on their repertoire as well as the lyrics of Woody Guthrie on "Shipping Up to Boston". It´s traditional Irish and it´s sentimental more than it is angry. It´s hard to get feeling of a dirty factory in the lovely summer evening, but that doesn´t matter, because they do it with a heart and it affect the people in the crowd a lot, And that turn it into a big summer party. The true qualities this night comes from the way they use their chanting choruses, that they master to an Oi! perfection. However as my brother pointed out, they could left AC/DCs “TNT” at home, because they can´t reach their own level doing a bad cover on a good song. They got enough good songs themselves to keep it up the whole concert. So many songs that they could change them a bit. The fast song, "Citizen CIA" was played as a mellow slow beat, acoustic version. My personal favorite this Nordic sun light June night was “Sunday Hardcore Matinee, it sounded just as it should.

Was it worth the money?

Was it worth the money? Yes. I payed 200 SKr (20 Euro, 28 USD). But it´s even better than that because from that I got a card that give me free access to concerts with Iggy and the Stooges, Jimmy Cliff, Lenny Kravitz, Opeth and more at Gröna Lund this summer. Or just free entrence to the park any day.

It was a great perfomance, if it was held somwhere else it would been a great concert. Or as my brother put it, "If they have got louder volume somewhere else they would have tore the place apart".