BY ALEC SMART
April 23, 2019
Flogging Molly, a seven-piece Irish-American band from Los Angeles, performed their punk-infused Celtic folk-rock at the Metro Theatre, Sydney, on April 18. Support came from young Sydney rockers, Black Heartbreakers, and solo British folk artist Beans On Toast.
The event was a side-show tied in with the annual BluesFest in Byron Bay over Easter, which also promoted national touring concerts by BluesFest co-headliners Iggy Pop and Norah Jones.
Beans On Toast is the stage name of British folk singer Jay McAllister, who has ten studio albums to his credit, which he releases annually on his birthday, 1 December. A prolific singer-songwriter, his 2009 debut album, Standing On A Chair, featured 50 songs.
Although Beans On Toast has toured with Flogging Molly before, including USA and UK, this is the first time they’ve performed together in Australia.
McAllister’s songs, witty poems covering social and environmental issues, recreational drug use, true-life stories and drinking, are typically more recited than sung, accompanied by a ¾-sized acoustic guitar.
Subject matter included UK Crown Prince Harry’s military service, battery-farmed chickens, taking MDMA (ecstasy) at a music festival, and one written specifically for an (in)famous music festival: Take Your Shit Home, about revellers attending ‘green’ music festivals, yet leaving tonnes of rubbish behind.
Black Heartbreakers is an adrenaline-fuelled quartet that have enjoyed major opening spots for international bands Stiff Little Fingers, Marky Ramone and The Ruts.
They’ve released two Eps and an album plus a well-received cover of the Beach Boys’ song Barbara Ann. The quirky video clip to their single, Melody, features a young man dancing animatedly alone to a cassette player on a footpath, the Sydney Harbour Bridge looming above and behind him.
Onstage they’re a powerhouse of energy with tight, melodic hard-rock numbers that rapidly get a room motivated.
Flogging Molly are centred around the partnership of Dublin-born singer-songwriter Dave King and his violinist wife Bridget Regan, with alternate banjo, mandolin, tin whistle, violin, piano accordion, drums and guitars accompaniment.
A little-known fact is King once sang vocals in early 1980s British heavy metal band Fastway that featured guitarist ‘Fast Eddie’ Clarke, who found international fame with Motörhead. Thereafter, at the invitation of business magnate David Geffen, founder of Geffen Records and DreamWorks film studio, King relocated to America in 1991 to sing for metal band Katmandu.
Later, whilst recording a solo album and frustrated by the record label’s reluctance to let him use traditional Irish instruments, King reportedly renegotiated his contract and formed Flogging Molly to showcase his songs, fusing hard rock and Celtic folk.
However, because he was now based in the USA, but living without a ‘Green Card’ that enabled him lawful residential status, he was unable to return home to Ireland for eight years for fear of not being allowed back in the country. This ‘exile’ status dominated the lyrics of the foundling Flogging Molly and influenced his wistful approach to songwriting.
Contrary to popular opinion, the band’s name doesn’t hark from a colonial-era whipping post, but instead was derived from their weekly Monday night tenancy at Molly Malone’s Irish bar in Los Angeles. An in-joke developed that, despite building up a loyal following, they were ‘flogging it to death’ by playing there every week, and hence ‘Flogging Molly’ came about.
The band have released six studio albums since their 1997 inception, several critically-acclaimed, plus a few live albums.
Their Metro gig featured selections from their career, including crowd favourites Drunken Lullabies, Rebels of the Sacred Heart, Seven Deadly Sins, and Billboard chart-topper, Requiem for a Dying Song.
There was a smattering of Irish accents in the audience from the inevitable ex-pats that attend Flogging Molly shows, most of whom enticed the moshpit into a whirl of activity – the Irish can always be relied up for enthusiastic dancing.
At one stage flat cap-wearing guitarist Dennis Casey launched into an animated solo on his Gibson SG, which inspired Dave King to comment, “You Australians love your Gibson SGs!” – a reference to another famous flat cap-wearing Aussie guitarist from a little-known band called AC-DC.
In their song Crushed, which King introduced tongue-in-cheek as the band’s version of the famous RiverDance musical, the song segued into ‘Queen of Soul’ Aretha Franklin’s R.E.S.P.E.C.T. before finishing on ‘the real Queen of Rock’, Queen’s We Will Rock You.
Thereafter the band played a rousing encore of old favourites while the moshpit continued to swirl, the appreciative crowd never tiring.
Check out Alec Smart Photos full gallery here.
Connect with Flogging Molly. FACEBOOK // INSTAGRAM // TWITTER