All-time favorites: Flogging Molly
Yeah, that's the name of the band..
I remember the first time I saw Flogging Molly play.
Where: The Los Angeles Coliseum/Sports Arena (RIP)parking lot.
When: Summer 2002.
It was one of the two Warped Tour events I went to over the course of a two-year span. The band list at this show was some of our teenage favorites: AFI, Pennywise and The Deviates, when all of a sudden I heard it.
You know, that sound you’ve been looking for? Yeah, just like that sound Marvin Berry found in Back To The Future, this was that sound.
The song that changed the way I view music forever was “Drunken Lullabies”. I can replay it over, and over, in my head. I remember where I was standing.
The band consisted of what some would consider normal musical instruments, such as bass guitars and drums, while also including a mandolin, a violin, an accordion, and a tin whistle. Some refer to it as punk rock, others understand the complexity it mixes, the Celtic background infused with traditional rock music.
From there, I was hooked. During the age of Napster, you couldn’t find Flogging Molly online like that. At least not yet.
When I had the money, I invested. Drunken Lullabies and Swagger were the first two Flogging Molly albums I purchased. If it was a cassette tape, I’d have worn them out.
Released in 2000, Swagger seventh and eighth tracks shift from “Black Friday Rule” into “The Likes Of You Again” was just a seamless transition. Two songs, so perfectly entwined that it felt as if they were one.
The Drunken Lullabies album was released in March of 2002, and it was fitting that I heard its title track that summer.
In the spring of 2004, a very good friend took his own life, and the fourth song on the Drunken Lullabies album, “If I Ever Leave This World Alive”, began to feel a bit more true.
Each time I hear that song, whether it be on the playlist or to close out a concert, it definitely brings a tear to my eye.
Will we ever get out alive? No, we won’t. We can either get busy living or get busy dying.
This photo is from a trip to Seattle in 2013. No, I didn’t see Flogging Molly on the trip.
Other albums released have been 2004’s Within A Mile Of Home and 2008’s Float. Flogging Molly recorded Live at the Greek Theatre the same night Ohio State visited USC at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in 2008, and while it was tough to pick which event I’d attend, I wound up enjoying the USC drubbing of Ohio State while the album is one of my all-time favorites.
A sleeper album from this longtime fan is Whiskey On A Sunday, because hidden on that 2006 release is “Laura”, a ballad that defines the type of energy the band brings to each and every live show.
Over the years I’ve seen Flogging Molly at a number of venues, from Anaheim’s House of Blues to a show just after my 40th birthday at the Grove in Anaheim.
This image was taken following the 2023 Grove show.
The first to the Grove followed with a visit to Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles in Long Beach.
There was also a 2009 NYE show at the Wiltern, and an unnamed show where we arrived, went to the Guinness vendor only to be told they were sold out. Doors had opened maybe 30 minutes prior to our arrival.
Shows on St. Patrick’s Day galore, and a very special one with a dear friend, Maureen, where there was no area to mosh pit. So what did Nick do? He created a small mosh pit in the seating area, was told he couldn’t and proceeded to continue moshing.
In 2007, I caught Flogging Molly at the Avalon Theatre in Hollywood with another favorite, The Bouncing Souls during their “Wheels for Humanity” tour.
Being told the 2023 show at The Grove could possibly be the last played locally is definitely one that is a tough pill to swallow. Band front man Dave King suffered a brain hemorrhage in February 2025, and the band called off the majority of its 2025 tour.
As luck would have it, I got to meet bassist Nathan Maxwell, who hails from Lawndale, California, prior to the show.
To say I’ve had fun at these shows would be an understatement.
To stay I’d love to sit down with members of the band to talk inspiration, their journey and how they’ve grown not only as a band but individuals would be an understatement. It would be a dream to pick a songwriters brain and see what went into certain songs.
I’ve compiled a Spotify playlist of what I’ve called a Quintessential Flogging Molly playlist
Who is one of your favorite performing artists? When did you fall in love with them?
Until our next adventure!
Nick
“It takes more than guts to be a bigger man.”