Rancid and Dropkick Murphys w/ The Bronx @ Pop’s – Sauget, IL

On Sunday night the Rancid and Dropkick Murphys co-headline Boston to Berkeley II tour stopped for an outside show at Pop’s in Sauget, IL (right across the River from St. Louis, MO). Both bands previously hit the road together in 2017 for the first Boston to Berkeley tour and had originally planned the second tour for last year but it was postponed due to the pandemic.

By the time The Bronx had finished their set the crowd had been warmed up by the time Rancid hit the stage. Co-frontman Lars Fredrikson came out by himself and started playing ‘Roots Radicals’ but it only took about thirty seconds for the rest of the band Matt Freeman, Branden Steineckert , and a heavily bearded Tim Armstrong to come storm the stage. Second up was ‘Radio’, one of my all time favorite Rancid songs. It did not take long for the fists to start pumping, fans singing along to every word, and of course a large circle pit to form and people to start moshing. From song to song Tim would drag the mic stand and all with him around the stage to sing next to Lars or next to Dropkick Murphys Tim Brennan who played keyboard on several songs during the set. A little under halfway into the set all the band members left the stage with exception of Lars and he played ‘The Wars End’ solo. Before launching into ‘Salvation’ off their second album ‘Lets Go’ Lars asked Tim and Matt how long have they been coming to St. Louis to witch Matt replied 1988 back when Operation Ivy played The Boilermaker. Lars said that both of them could just take up residence in St. Louis at this point. The band closed their set with two of their biggest hits ‘Time Bomb’ and ‘Ruby Soho’ both off their third album ‘…And Out Come the Wolves’.

It didn’t take long for fans to start chanting ‘Let’s go Murphys’ or ‘Dropkick Murphys’ after Rancid left the stage. First up was ‘The Boys Are Back’ off of 2013s ‘Signed and Sealed in Blood’. Both singers Al Barr and Ken Casey passed pack and forth singing and riling up the crowd. Normally singers Barr and Casey spend a good amount of time throughout the set singing from the barriers along with the fans but with the pandemic they kept to the stage and stacks of speakers in front of the stage. Somewhere around ‘Mick Jones Nicked My Pudding’ and ‘Good as Gold’ my camera battery died and I was hit in the side of the head with a full bottle of water so I retreated to the merch booth to grab a few things and then proceeded to watch the rest of the set from the safety of the back of the crowd. The band closed the set with a cover of ‘Having a Party’ by Sam Cook. It didn’t take long though for the band to come back and play a few more songs. ‘Rose Tattoo’, ‘Barroom Hero’ with members of Rancid joining them on stage, and probably their biggest hit to date ‘I’m Shipping Up to Boston’ that was featured in the film ‘The Departed’.