Appropriately, the latest live CD from the Celtic punk band, The Dropkick Murphys is getting released on St Patrick’s Day. It’s not often that a live release can fully capture the energy and atmosphere of a concert, but this one bucks that trend.

Nearly a decade after they started playing their legendary shows FL spoke to a slightly-less-enthusiastic-than-usual-but-still-pleasant lead singer Al Barr.

When we spoke the band was on tour with Strung Out, and gearing up for their St Patrick’s Day shows in hometown, Boston. I ask Barrif it’s hard to stay pumped with such a rigorous schedule. “We’re kinda just getting ready for the frantic boil. It’s more of a big build up with no wind down. It’s from the frying pan into the fire if you will.” From small beginnings, not many could have predicted just how big an Irish band could get “We’ve always just done what we’ve done….We don’t really worry about what people think of us. Because if we did then we probably would have never left our garage you know’

The string of St Patrick’s concerts are now the major dates on the Dropkicks calendar, with the band playing six shows in seven days in a week long St Patrick’s festival. “I know where I’m going to be every March, I’ll be in Boston and I’ll be doing my thing with the band. We always tour into it, it gets us ready whether we’re in Europe or UK or US, we always know that Boston will be the end destination’

Dropkick Murphys’ last live release was 2002’s Live on St Patrick’s Day. “I think it’s just being able to have a record that has the last album [ The Meanest of Times ] that in itself is pretty cool. I’m just psyched to have a live album out that represents where the band is now. As opposed to the last CD which is a dinosaur now.”

Since that ‘dinosaur’ they’ve released three studio albums, each one chock-a-block with new anthems. “It’s time for us to chart where the band is, we’re more about our live shows than anything else…and after having done the first live CD and this being our 10th year of doing St Pat’s Day shows in Boston it’s kind of special that we’re releasing it this year”.

Live on Landsdowne showcases the organic tradition that surrounds the Dropkick Murphys and what they stand for. Their shows are hugely participatory; but how does the band predict what will be an anthem? “It always takes time. What we think is an anthem and what the crowd takes under their wing could be two different things. There’s a song on the Warrior’s Code called The Last Letter Home which we thought was one of the best anthems the band’s ever written and it’s never taken off live. It never became the anthem we thought it would be.”

Barr is the non-Irishman of the band, with a Scottish/German background and only started listening to Irish music through the band, “I grew up with American folk music… when I was a kid I was more rooted in Woody Guthrie and that sort of ilk.

“I mean the Pogues obviously were something I listened to prior to becoming part of this thing… and there were obviously other Irish songs I’d heard but it was never something I’d thought about before joining the ranks here but that was 12 years ago so I’ve had plenty of time to be brought up to speed on it,” he chuckles.