Guinness presents Alien Ant Farm w/ Keltic Cowboys - September 24th, 2009 - Wrigley Mansion - Phoenix, AZ

Review by Liz Tanguay

Guinness sponsored this intimate show held at the historic Wrigley Mansion in Phoenix. The sprawling hilltop house offered spectacular views of the city 100ft below. The twinkling lights viewed on the limo-van ride to the top built anticipation for the show to come. Of course, being sponsored by Guinness, it was only fitting to have the Arizona based Keltic Cowboys as the opening band. Even though Alien Ant Farm has a completely different sound, Keltic Cowboys definitely got the crowd amp-ed up.

Keltic Cowboys (KC) is made up of Frank Mackey (lead vocals, bagpipes, guitar, mandolin, banjo, harmonica, accordion), Laura Russ (fiddle, vocals), Paddy Brodericks (bass, vocals) and Pat Flanagan (lead guitar, vocals). KC has two albums out on indie label FireAnt Records: Songs of Longing and Debauchery and the latest Pay for Our Sins Tomorrow. With a sound similar and often mistaken for Flogging Molly, Keltic Cowboys rallied the half drunken crowd with the fist pumping, jig dancing, beer toasting, bagpipe laden fun. The band nearly required the pounding of shots of Jameson and the standing on tables to join the noisy anthem. They brought the mood down for just a moment with the highland pipes rendition of “Amazing Grace”. The pipes reverberated in the tiny space and reminded me of a funeral, but only for a minute. The rest of the foursome joined in and the sad song evolved into the great Irish pub sing-a-long “Whiskey in the Jar”. There where shouts of “oi, oi, oi” and spontaneous jig dancing throughout the throng. The final song Fighting Man had me singing along even though I had never heard it before. The ending energy was a great lead into the Alien Ant Farm show that followed.

Getting lost on the way to find the second stage was a momentary annoyance that allowed for tour of the majestic mansion. The directions received from a helpful bystander lead to the barn/garage where Alien Ant Farm was about to go on. While finding my perfect front row center position, the early arrivals watched as the bearded tech sound checked the drums. I remember thinking “so easy a caveman can do it”. As AAF took the tiny stage, the crowd started pressing in. We were close enough to touch Dryden Mitchell (vocals) and he certainly reached out a grabbed us as he powered through his lyrics while Joe Hill rocked out his David Bowie tee and his guitar.

AAF started the set with high octane songs from their previous albums (Greatest Hits, ANThology, and TruANT) starting with "Courage". Mitchell taunts the assembly with “You didn’t realize how hard we are”. Not THAT hard in my opinion, even with the mad man facial expressions of the Alex Barreto (bass). Right before they go into “1000 Days”, Mitchell tells us how much he loves Phoenix saying “Fuck Philadelphia! Not really, but I do love Phoenix”. He then picks up the tambourine and Mike Cosgrove ups the intensity with his drumming. The hard hitting and fast “Drifting Apart” set the air for the rambunctious sing-a-long of “Movies” with Mitchell walking out in the midst of the crowd.

AAF seamed to be losing momentum with “Attitude”, “Glow” and “Forgive and Forget”. Just when I was starting to yawn, however, they kicked it up about 3 notches with “Sarah” with Mitchell screaming “What the hell were thinking about?” They followed this with the best performance of the night, “S.S. Recognize”. Fans started crushing forward, hands reaching out for Mitchell while they banged out the hardest song of the set. Sweat poured and dancing commenced on and off the stage. Of course the set wouldn’t be complete without the song that put the band on the mainstream map, Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal”. By this time the crowd was maniacal, shoving now and nearly jumping on stage. Everyone sang along with this great song “Annie are you okay, you okay Annie?” What encore could have topped that?

Wrigley Mansion lent itself to two distinct and different sounds and I’d like to thank Guinness for introducing me to fun and energetic Keltic Cowboys. I look forward to catching a complete set of this Celtic punk band. And I’ll have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised by the punk pop metal of Alien Ant Farm. I may have previously underestimated the quality by only listen to radio singles. Their intensity was interesting and they played well to the adoring crowd.

Visit Alien Ant Farm's official websites: alienantfarm.com