by Lexi Bissonnette
Corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, green beer and the famous Green 17 tour from Flogging Molly are staples for many Americans celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day. But this year, the Celtic rock band’s tour is in it’s tenth and final year.
“Being an insider it’s bittersweet,” says guitarist Dennis Casey. “It’s the end of something we did for so long, but the beginning of something new that we can do.”
The Green 17 tour certainly has grown and evolved since it began. What was once a 17-day tour now spans over two months and the entire country. It’s a concert series that many people go to year after year and new people check it out as well, of course. Most bands cannot claim to have a ten year tour and Casey is grateful Flogging Molly can.
Casey’s favorite memory of the tour was a stop in front of 5,000 people where his dad first saw him play as part of Flogging Molly. “It was great because he was always telling me to turn my guitar off when I was younger,” jokes Casey. “I remember when it was done I asked him what he thought and he was like ‘you were okay.'”
The tour means a lot to Casey and the band. Over the past ten years it has introduced them to many new people and helped them see friends and family while they were on the road touring. Meeting fans and reconnecting with old friends has been one of Casey’s favorite parts of the touring.
Green 17 may be ending but Casey says though there are no set plans right now the band will definitely be touring again. “It may not even have a name, it may just be the Flogging Molly Tour. But, we will definitely be touring.”
That isn’t the only news from the band. They’re about to start work on their sixth studio album. No release date is definite yet, but fans can look for it in 2014.
In it’s final year, Flogging Molly is serving up something that all fans, from veterans to newbies, will appreciate. For 2014, the band will be playing a bunch of older songs they haven’t included in a few years as well as songs they’ve never played during Green 17 before. Make sure you stop and see the final performance of the Green 17 Tour in Philadelphia on the 24th at The Electric Factory.
“This is not the end,” says Casey. “This is only the second chapter. It’s just turning the turning of a page.”
