A popular Celtic punk band that comes to the Twin Cities almost every March ahead of St. Patrick’s Day, Dropkick Murphys also will celebrate Minnesota’s ICE resistance movement this time around.
The hot-headed, Irish-blooded Boston rock vets have helped put together a free anti-ICE block party across the street from the Alex Pretti memorial site in Minneapolis on March 6, the same day they’re slated to play a sold-out show at the Palace Theatre in St. Paul. They plan to play a 4 p.m. acoustic set in the Black Forest Inn restaurant’s parking lot, where an all-local music lineup has also been assembled around their appearance from 1-8 p.m.
Other artists set to perform at the block party include Kiss the Tiger, the Shackletons, Laamar, Obi Original, Brass Solidarity, Sophie Hiroko, Danza Ketzal, Chutes and the Wild Colonial Bhoys. Along with the Irish lads in the latter band, the roster of local acts on the bill includes band members from Korean, Nigerian, Mexican and Japanese immigrant backgrounds.
The concert was co-organized with the Whittier Alliance neighborhood organization and Valor Media Network, a charity co-helmed by Dropkick Murphys frontman Ken Casey to provide aid to Ukraine war victims. It will be livestreamed via the Valor website.
“Help us support the warriors who’ve stepped up to protect our neighbors and our democracy,” Dropkick Murphys said in their social media posts announcing the event.
In lieu of tickets, attendees and livestream viewers will be asked to donate to any (or all) of four designated causes: Neighbors Helping Neighbors, Show Up for Eat Street, Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota and Rent Support for Bancroft Families (the latter a GoFundMe campaign organized by staff at Bancroft Elementary School).
Black Forest Inn has been serving free coffee and hot tea to ICE observers, protesters and others who have come to their intersection over the past month since Pretti, a VA hospital nurse, was fatally shot by federal agents on the street outside the restaurant, at 26th Street and Nicollet Avenue. The question — a big one to DKM fans — remains whether it will be able to serve beer to concertgoers in the parking lot on March 6. Many logistical details of the event are still being mapped out.
