The greatest thing about punk rock is that it has never and will never sit behind boundaries. Nobody knows this more than Flogging Molly. Having enjoyed almost twenty years of worldwide success, the seven piece have mastered their art of blending the soft but regularly disorderly traditional Irish music with full on aggressive punk, resulting in a heavyweight of a combination and a career. Before they go on to headline Boomtown Fair, they stop off for an intimate but rowdy as ever (and stupidly sweaty) warmup show in Norwich.
Supported by the band’s recent touring buddy, the great singer-songwriter Jay Mcallister aka Beans on Toast. It is clear from the start that he’s brought a fanbase of his own that sits perfectly with headliner’s. Jay’s acoustic ballads about the likes of government, drug taking and chicken farming provides a fresh and gut-wrenchingly hilarious take on life’s matters, without it being all too serious. Thanks to his easy to learn singalongs such as ‘A Whole Lot of Loving’ and ‘Fuck You Nashville’, Beans on Toast has now firmly established his own niche and audience, rather than just being known as ‘Frank Turner’s mate’.
It’s not long until the sold-out waterfront fills out once the lights dim. Flogging Molly waste no time in getting the crowd moving with opener ‘The Like of You Again’. Slinging their collection of fiddles, whistles, accordions and banjos all over the place, the band put on a greatest hits set that doesn’t slow down in energy and charisma.
Almost immediately, frontman Dave King starts to show off his classic Irish sense of humour, bantering with the crowd before he throws out some career spanning fan favourites, including ‘Screaming at the Wailing Wall’, ‘Float’ and ‘Drunken Lullabies’. The band are a beast of their own these days (they have their own cruise festival for god’s sake) and their success is no surprise, judging by their infectious charisma, sublime musicianship and the anarchic atmosphere they produce; rounded off by the occasional crowd-surfer.
Ending the set on the anthemic ‘If I Ever Leave This World Behind’, that is suitably the biggest singalong of the night, Flogging Molly show Norwich that they are living proof that nobody has to conform to one genre to be successful. Who’d have thought that traditional Irish music and punk rock would be such a perfect match?
Words – Louis Kerry
Photography – Kayleigh Warren
