Flogging Molly, Inward Eye, Dean Lickyer – Live (Oct. 26th, 2009)

As we walked into the renovated Edmonton Event Centre, the first band of the night hit the stage. We hurried across the venue to the stage to catch Dean Lickyer, a band who got their start on Much Music’s DisBAND and probably should’ve stopped there. The musicianship was there with some great guitar riffs and bass lines working off of one another, but the classic rock sound was overdone and forgettable. Once you took into account the uncomfortable flailings of the front man during the excessive solos, Dean Lickyer became a combination of boring and awkwardness that forced more then a few people to turn around and find their way back to the beer gardens.

My reaction was to turn around and wait in line for some Flogging Molly merch – a wait that took almost twenty minutes and caused me to miss the first song of Inward Eye‘s set; which was unfortunate because in a way, Inward Eye stole the show that night.

Playing a selection of tracks from their debut album, Throwing Bricks Instead of Kisses, Inward Eye had a stage presence that merged the UK 77 explosion akin to the Clash alongside some turn of the century Green Day. They were energetic, engaging and spastic. Front man Dave Erickson was fighting a cold which added an extra layer of crust to his vocal delivery while his brothers backed him up during numerous technical difficulties.

Nothing seemed to faze them. As they were about to enter a Clash cover, Dave Erickson’s bass cut out and it wasn’t until he tried three other basses that he was able to get one working again. But was it dead space in that time frame? Far from it; instead, the technical difficulty turned into an extended introduction between guitarist Kyle Erickson and drummer Anders Erickson (yes, they’re all brothers). After over a minute of that, Kyle dropped off and Anders took flight with a drum solo that could only be described as epic. Comparable to, and in some ways even surpassing, Travis Barker’s recent solo during the Blink182reunion tour this summer, Erickson’s solo was easily the highlight of the entire night and turned Inward Eye into a band I won’t soon forget.

Despite that Inward Eye were the most memorable band of the night, Flogging Molly definitely didn’t disappoint in their lengthy two hour set. The celtic-punk band hit on everything and didn’t stick to only their newest album but chose equally from their entire catalogue; going as far back as playing five songs from their debut 2000 album, Swagger, and even played Laura, the bside from their CD/DVD combo Whiskey On A Sunday.

Dave King’s vocals were strong – particularly in the slower songs like Float, The Wrong Company, The Son Never Shines On Closed Doors and If I Ever Leave The World Alive – but it was the combination of all seven members that riled up the crowd. Stopping only to drink some Guinness, tell a quick story or do a little tune up, Flogging Molly kept the pace moving and the crowd singing along all night. There was an undeniable chemistry between the seven members as they looked as if they were genuinely enjoying it and would have been just as happy if they were playing back at Molly Malone; and that sense of indisputable fun easily passed into to the crowd as well.

By the end of the night the crowd was drenched in a combination of sweat and spilt beer; but as everyone made their way out of the world’s biggest mall, it was unlikely that anybody cared in the slightest.