Sometimes things just don’t get any better. Like right now: at this very moment, I’m looking at the new CD of everyone’s favorite folkpunkers, Dropkick Murphys. Recorded live. In Boston, their hometown. On St. Patrick’s Day. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Believe me: it gets even better. With 26 songs, great sound quality, a pumped up audience and the band in great shape, this CD is easily going to be my personal favorite for the year.

After a short intro the band bursts into a couple of uptempo songs, including Murphys classic ‘Boys On The Docks’, followed by a bunch of songs from their latest album, Sing Loud. Sing Proud. They play that album almost entirely, so these songs make up for about half of the setlist, but the band also plays a couple of songs from each of their previous albums and even manage to squeeze in a boatload of covers (including ‘Finnegan’s Wake’ from Ireland’s very own Dubliners and the Boston Bruins theme song), and an onstage marriage proposal.

Like I said, the sound is great and well-balanced and the crowd is loud and energetic and turns almost every song into a singalong.

In the newer songs, bass player Ken Casey usually sings about half the lyrics, but his voice fits the music just as well as All Barr’s raw singing style. Barr also leaves most of the banter in between songs to Casey, but he manages to cut the crap to an acceptable level, so the overall flow doesn’t get disturbed too much.

What I like so much about this band is their passion and honesty and the pride they take in who they are and what they do, and that’s exactly what you get here: honest, passionate (but still darn funny) songs about drinking or the working class that make me want to clench my fist and sing along. The band admits they ‘can’t play for shit’ and I’m sure they make plenty of mistakes on this, but they rock the pants off my ass with this excellent release, which is in no way just a crowd-pleaser. I could lift weights for days on this record.