Kelly and I had been looking forward to this show for some time, as she had never seen Flogging Molly, and I knew what a great live show they are, and it was made more exciting by being at the newly renovated Hollywood Palladium. Well I have to say Flogging Molly was amazing, but overall I had some major issues with the show. First off the renovated Palladium doesn’t seem much different than the old Palladium which I have been to many times back when I was in college and after. Sure the paint is fresh, and they have a ton of bars, and you can use a credit card anyplace, but other than that it looks the same. And the ceiling while having cool chandeliers, still has air conditioning vents, and strange holes it looks like they didn’t bother to plug. And those are the minor gripes, the big one is the sound system. The sound was way too loud, and I am talking easily 30%-50% into the painful range. Ridiculously loud! And I forgot my ear plugs, so we bought drinks so we could get napkins and shove them in our ears, and that barely helped at all. And then there were the opening bands….

The opening bands were 3 punk bands, Anti-Flag, The Briggs and Jackson United, and maybe I could have liked their music OK, as I used to dig that style of punk, but the thing is with the sound system so loud, they honestly hurt my ears so bad, I wanted to go lay down. I mean Kelly’s ears were still ringing the next evening, and that is too much! Not knowing the music and having it be hard punk and that loud just made it unbearable. Honestly I should have listened to Kelly and gone at 10:30 PM instead of 8:30 PM.

Now Flogging Molly was of course amazing. Dave King was amazing as always, and I will never get how they play their songs almost 50% faster live than on their albums (giving them their punk aspect of their celtic punk music) and play them so well. He is amazing. And it was cool to hear that he married Bridget Regan who plays fiddle, tin whistle and uillean pipes.

The thing about Flogging Molly is they don’t have one bad song, so it is good to hear every song, though I do wish they had played the Worst Day Sing Yesterday, but that is a small complaint. These guys are too amazing to complain about.

Now the sound system did hurt them as well, with some of Regan’s flute being so loud it hurt my brain. Just too damn loud.

I have taken Kelly to quite a few shows, but I have never seen her look so happy, even with her ears hurting. I mean she was beaming ear to ear, and confided that she thinks Flogging Molly is the greatest live band ever, and I must say they are right up there.

These guys should be so much bigger than they are.