It’s been a long time since Dropkick Murphys established themselves as the premier flag bearers not just for Celtic Punk but for the Boston punk and hardcore scenes at large. For three decades and counting (yes, really) the band have been road dogs, endlessly spreading their pro-Union and increasingly vocal anti-fascist messages far and wide. The band’s annual run of hometown St. Patrick’s Day shows have a tendency to feel more than a little bit like a homecoming reunion, the ample crowds filled with names and faces that might have greyed and put on a few as the years have gone by, but who still gather together to revel arm in arm in celebration of the working-class punk rock icons. In certain markets, there is a segment of the showgoing population that seems to have been weeded out over the last decade or so with Ken Casey and crew’s unabashed focus on just where they stand on many of the hottest of hot-button sociopolitical issues, and the shows and the crowds have benefited from this mightily.
The 2026 version of the Dropkicks’ St. Paddy’s shows perhaps exemplify this better than any other installment from years past, as the lineups were culled from generations of Boston street punk royalty. With the band’s recent tourmates and local hardcore upstarts Haywire serving as the kickoff act for the first three nights at the cavernous – and sold out – MGM Fenway, the remainder of the lineups composed a veritable Who’s Who of the last three decades in the Boston area scene and comprised a handful of bands that haven’t played out on more than a decade. Friday the 13th featured Showcase Showdown (?!?) and Vigilantes, Saturday the 14th featured fellow tourmates The Aggrolites, Tuesday the 17th saw appearances from the Dropkicks’ Pogues-punk predecessors Big Bad Bollocks (?!?), Reducers S.F. and the almighty New Darkbuster (also ?!?). The Sunday evening show was no slouch either, featuring performances by longtime scene vets The Ducky Boys and The Unseen.
Haywire were first out of the chute and they took the stage with a vengeance, ripping into a verse of the Thin Lizzy classic “The Boys Are Back In Town” before kicking in to their self-titled introductory track “Haywire.” Haywire have taken both the Boston scene and the larger hardcore scene by storm over the last couple of years, and with good reason. The band is a force, centered around the constant ball of frenetic energy that is frontman Austin Sparkman. The band blistered through their ten song set with plenty of time to spare in their half-hour set which even allowed Sparkman ample time to extoll the virtues of sobriety and checking in on one’s own mental health. Rarely was he in one place for more than mere moments, unless it was atop the box inside the barricade at stage center where he could meet the constant barrage of crowd-surfers head-on. Dropkick Murphys ringleader Ken Casey joined the Haywire crew on stage for a rendition of “New England Forever,” a track that appears on the bands’ split EP that was released for this run of shows.
The Ducky Boys were up next. The band hold a special place in my cold, hardened heart, as they played the only show I was ever able to attend at the iconic and long-since departed Boston venue The Rathskeller – better known as “The Rat.” While the band have remained fairly active in a variety of other projects in the Boston area like Mark Lind and the Unloved or personal favorite The Warning Shots, it had been a minute since the Ducky Boys took the stage together. Due in part to the volume of songs in their catalog and the limited time they had on stage, the band opted for more of a medley approach to their set; seven songs – including “Scars” and “Boston USA” were played in full while eleven others appeared as snippets or abbreviated versions. It was a fun way to cram a lot of material into thirty minutes, although there are certainly longtime Ducky Boys fans who would have preferred more of all of the above!
The Unseen occupied the direct support spot on this bill. Another band who have been mostly quiet for quite some time now, although yours truly had seen them much more recently than the Ducky Boys; a 2013 opening spot on the Street Dogs then-annual Wreck The Halls bill as memory serves. The band’s snarly version of street punk is just as full of piss-and-vinegar as ever, perhaps an indication that things haven’t improved for the working class in the last quarter-century. Highlights included a ferocious version of “Weapons Of Mass Deception,” “Scream Out,” and “Are We Dead Yet?” – the latter of which featured an appearance by former Unseen/Pinkerton Thugs band member Paul Russo.
Which brings us to the main event. In somewhat atypical fashion, the band burst on stage and ripped into the bagpipe-heavy “Deeds Not Words,” a track from 2011’s Going Out In Style that had disappeared from setlists for the better part of a decade prior to the recent For The People…In The Pit run with Haywire. Not only are Ken Casey and crew – Matt Kelly on drums, James Lynch on guitar, Tim Brennan on a bunch of instruments, Jeff DaRosa on a bunch of other instruments, Kevin Rheault on bass and Campbell Webster on pipes – celebrating their thirty years as a band this year, but they also put out their most vital and furious record in a decade, For The People, last year. As such, the setlist for this evening was pretty representative of both bookends of their career, as five songs from For The People and four from their debut full-length Do Or Die (“Never Alone”! “Get Up”!) were featured prominently.
This being the third of four hometown holiday weekend shows, there were of course some unique and special moments. Pinkerton Thugs/The Unseen’s Paul Russo returned to the stage for a cover of the former band’s “One Day.” The Dropkicks later dusted off their uptempo cover of the Clash classic “Guns Of Brixton,” a frequent staple in the band’s earlier years, as Strummer and Co. have long been guiding lights for the Murphys’ brand of socially conscious punk rock. Austin from Haywire returned Casey’s previous favor, joining the band on stage for “Citezen I.C.E.,” a reworked and updated version of their 2005 track “Citizen C.I.A.” while the rest of Sparkman’s Haywire bandmights joined the whole crew for a cover of Haywire’s “Always By My Side” to close out the main set.
This particular show was also “Red Bandana Night,” in honor of Welles Crowther, the former Boston College lacrosse player who died a hero in the World Trade Center’s South Tower on 9/11. The band presented Crowther’s mother with a $10,000 check to the Welles Crowther Charitable Trust, which raises money for social and emotional learning programs from kindergarten through undergrad. As an added touch, Crowther’s alma mater, Boston College, sent the Screaming Eagle Marching Band out for the occasion to join the Dropkicks for the now iconic “Shipping Up To Boston,” their take on a Woody Guthrie’s words that helped shoot the band into the cultural stratosphere two decades ago (and which has since been adopted by the Screaming Eagle Band at home games on the Heights. It’s enough to make even the most callous of Northeastern University fans (read as: me) smile in appreciation.
Flip through more images from a glorious evening at the galleries below, and stay tuned for more coverage from the Dropkicks thirtieth anniversary!
