The Downtown Las Vegas Events Center was the place for the Vegas stop of the Boston to Berkeley Tour featuring punk legends Rancid and Dropkick Murpheys, with a sold out outdoor show and a beautiful cool(er) night in Vegas. This was second to last night of the tour, and the venue was packed and both bands held nothing back for a no holds barred punk rock —
The co-headlining tour had Rancid first for this Vegas show, and the DLVEC was packed early as the show got underway. Rancid and Tm Armstrong came out strong with “Radio” and “Roots Radical”, and played though a 20 song full set that included “Bloodclot”, “Maxwell Murder”, “Nihilism” and “It’s Quite Alright”. Armstrong got off the stage and down in the crowd from the first couple songs in, and had the fans screaming along and dancing from the start. Armstrong took a moment to announce the GBH show down the street later that night and told the crowd that was where he would be, and brought out GBH singer Colin Abraham to take a bow (the later GBH show at the beauty bar was a sellout for the night too). Rancid finally wound down their show with radio hits “Ruby Soho” and “Time bomb” while the crowd screamed along on the chorus.
Dropkick MurphyDKM had the final spot for this show, and after the intro of "The Lonesome Boatman" Vocalist Al Barr also got down in the crowd early, and sang and pounded fists with the fans for a rowdy “Gang's all Here” and “I Had a Hat”. The Dropkick set was heavy on songs from 11 Short Stories of Pain & Glory , their early 2017 release, with an impressive video backdrop and singalong for “Blood” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. came out kicking and screaming with “The Boys are Back” to really take the crowd over the top, with bodies flying over the pit wall and dance pits going from the first song in.
DKMRancidBoston to Berkeley for a 3 song climatic encore of “I Wanna Be Sedated”, “Folsom Prison Blues” and I Fought the Law” that had the crowd going wild, before this unruly punk rock soiree came to a close. A fantastic night of punk classics, great fun, and great weather, and a perfect venue for bringing to Vegas. also had a full 18 song set of their own, before being joined onstage with
Rancid Photos: Jo Anna Jackson / Stardoghotos
Dropkick Murphy Photos: Jo Anna Jackson / Stardoghotos