It’s been eight years since the first and latest time we saw Dropkick Murphys, at that time at this very festival. That’s quite a while, so what have the boys been up to, you might ask?
Well, if you’re looking at this review, there’s a good chance you’re more up to date than me on that, but here we go anyway.

“We’re the Dropkick Murphys, death metal from Boston, Massachusetts!”
- Ken Casey (vocals)

One interesting thing I did notice, compared to last time, was a certain change in personnel. At that time, Al Barr was the main frontman but I commented in my review that bassist Ken Casey did a much better job of frontmanning the band than Barr did.
Well, this time Barr wasn’t with them, and Casey had dropped the bass to focus solely on vocals and being a frontman, the role he had clearly been cut out to be in already back then. Casey is, as you might know, also the sole remaining original member of the band by now, so it makes sense that he’s also their spokesperson.
Something that absolutely hadn’t changed, was that the band came ready to have a party. They all looked extremely happy, fitting with the positive vibe of their music, and while most of them didn’t move as much as I’d expected, at least Casey was very agile as he utilized the entire Helvíti stage, as well as the security pit and the speakers in front of it - yes, there were times he got real snug with the frontline fans.
The fans weren’t the only ones who got to get close and personal with the band, as Dropkick Murphys invited the Irish band The Scratch to play with them for a song, Worker’s Song if my memory serves me. This was to promote the fact that Dropkick Murphys are planning to visit Denmark again in January for their own headlining tour, and they’ll have The Scratch with them as a support band at that time. The Scratch had played at Copenhell earlier in the day on the Pandæmonium stage.

But for now, we were at the Helvíti stage, watching Dropkick Murphys. Well, I say watched, but many of the fans were more active than that, quite a bit in fact.
Pretty much from the start of the show, there was a wild moshpit raising a large dust cloud over the crowd area, and with the amount of crowdsurfers constantly sailing by, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that they were going for some kind of record.
I’ve already mentioned that people went ape-shit when Casey went and stood on the security fence and sung in Smash Shit Up, but even when he was back up on the stage, they kept singing along for all they were worth. An obvious and easy contribution was the “Hurroo hurroo” part of Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ya, but there were others as well.
Rose Tattoo being dedicated to all the women of the crowd got a massive response, and in the song a massive circle pit as well.

There’s no doubt that what Dropkick Murphys deliver makes them incredibly popular, and having them on the main stage was the only sensible choice to go with, but while I too found them endearing and entertaining, it never really reached a visceral feeling where they got under my skin. A fine show, but sadly also a forgettable one. Exactly why this was is hard to say, but it just didn’t fully connect with me.

Setlist (incomplete):

Foggy Dew (Charles O’Neill song, Sinéad O’Connor version)
The Boys Are Back
Good As Gold
Smash Shit Up
Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ya
Blood
Worker’s Song
The State Of Massachusetts
You’ll Never Walk Enough (Rodgers & Hammerstein cover)
Out Of Our Heads
Rose Tattoo
The Irish Rover (Joseph M. Crofts cover)
I’m Shipping Up To Boston