Dropkick Murphys and Face to Face

Dropkick Murphys and Face to Face – Brixton Academy – 18 April 2010

Words by Alice Edy / photos by Marcus Maschwitz

Drop Kick My Face

It’s a week later, and the good news is that the scab over my left eyebrow has almost peeled off. Stage-divers: every crowd has one, and here’ s the thing… We know you’re not in the band. The game’s up. Sit the fuck down and have a biscuit. BUT the better news is that the good-old dirty-but-clean punk-rock-feeling isn’t washing-off, can’t heal, and doesn’t have a cure… and last Sunday night The Academy was full of people proudly wearing their scars.

There’s nothing like producing your crumpled, much-treasured and well-guarded ticket out of your sweaty little hand to the dayglo-clad, super-sized, super-bored bouncer (looking like somebody form the Britain’s Got Talent out-takes), standing outside The Brixton Academy on a polite English evening in Spring-time… Little matches the excitement of walking inside, knowing that you are about to see a band that have played a formative role, over many years, in shaping the person you have become (incidentally, I’m still waiting for an apology). Being lucky enough to see two such bands in the space of three hours is enough to make even the toughest pin-cushion-faced bastard have a little weep into his plastic beer mug, or the roughest rainbow-haired lass have secret wee in her shamrock knickers. Ahem – hypothetically speaking, of course. And don’t you judge if you weren’t there.

Face to Face have officially returned from their split-up/break-down/time-out/side-project hiatus of 5-odd years with faster guitars and larger arms than would seem acceptable, or even possible, from any other band. Unpretentious and unassuming on stage – all in black – once the band started playing it was impossible to think of anything outside of that moment. They are a band whose music is strongly supported by their lyrics, and there was a degree of concentration that was required to be able to really listen and appreciate what was happening in front of us. The audience gave more than that though – hanging on every sound that came from the stage. When Trever Keith told the audience to sing-along, we sang… not only because he is a sizable man and angering him would be a critical error – but because everyone was so completely immersed in the performance. It had been 7 years since Face To Face last played a show in London, and the hungry fans would not turn away even for a second; they consumed every last piece of the band. They played old songs as if they were new – like everything you owned got wrapped up for fake-Christmas, and you got to rediscover what you already had. The crowd was singing almost every word that came out of Mr. Keith’s mouth; and while the band was captivating, I found that I couldn’t help but watch the people… a forest of fists in the air, and hundreds of mouths all moving in time to someone else’s lyrics. Not mouthing them, not just mindless echoes – but screaming them. Meaning them. You had to be there. Face to Face, 20 years on, continue to be one of those few bands who remind us of the incredible unity that can resonate, albeit momentarily, through a group of people when we all confronted with our common humanity.

… but fuck it. To the bar. It was alcohol-o-clock*, and Let’s Go Murphys !

I had 15 minutes between sets to down my own body weight in liquor. After all, we’d come this far and it would have seemed downright rude to watch DKM un-drunk. Thus, selflessly, and in the noble pursuit of musical appreciation, journalistic integrity, and enduring commitment to cultural development, I did my best to get wasted. Asap.

When the stage went black, and an Irish folk song echoed through that crumbling theatre, there wasn’t a dry eye in Brixton. As the band started, the lights turned on to reveal the stage draped with huge stained-glass windows. It felt like being inside an old castle, or a long-forgotten church; it felt like you were confessing and sinning, at the same time. It was everything you’ve ever felt about punk-rock. About breaking the things that you love, because otherwise somebody else was going to. And about breaking yourself to save yourself from a world that’s broken. (…all this from a band that sings Kiss me, I’m Shitfaced…) It felt wrong, in the best way. It hurt your brain a bit, but that was nothing compared to your ears. For the next hour and a half The Murphys delivered a relentless performance, and those of us filled with 6 pints of beer would perhaps have been regretting some of our earlier decisions, had the show not been so energetic that there was no time to do anything else except sing, and dance, and generally get fucked-up. The band didn’t slow down for a second, there was no point (in what was definitely a value-for-money-set) where they showed any signs of surrender, and the audience fed off their energy. There were bagpipes, there were sweating, yelling Irishmen, there were people dancing on stage with the band, and profanities abounded like potatoes (in a good year). What more could one ask for? It was a sick kind of atonement for U2 and Enya. It felt like living in a magical green-tinted world where water turns to Guinness, and every day is St. Paddy’s Day… Legend has it that such a place exists, just west of here, across the sea…

When the show was over, hundreds of singing punks filled the London Underground; everyone claiming to be three-and-a-half-eighths Irish, on their mother’s side, twice removed. It was one of those rare, wired situations where the universe temporarily inverts on itself, and it became cool to be a Ginger. And, while I’m sure there are many Grannies out there who haven’t told us all there is to know about ol’ Postman Patrick, what’s more to the point (and I hope you’re paying attention here) is that Feeling…it’s that whole damn common-humanity thing again.

See what I did there?

Cheers. X

*Say it out loud… feels gooood. (Patent pending).