Dropkick Murphys delivered a politically charged performance during their recent Warped Tour appearance in Long Beach, California.
As per Rolling Stone, the band dedicated their song “First Class Loser” to President Donald Trump whilst performing against a backdrop featuring images and videos of the politician, including material highlighting his connection to Jeffrey Epstein.
Frontman Ken Casey introduced the song by telling the crowd: “This next song is dedicated to a guy who wears orange makeup, shits his pants in his diapers, rapes women, touches kids. It’s called ‘First Class Loser’.”
The performance featured visual elements that included a screenshot from a 2002 New York Magazine story, where Trump commented: “I’ve known Jeff[rey] for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
The Boston punk stalwarts have maintained a consistent stance against Trump throughout their career, with this latest incident representing the continuation of their outspoken political commentary. Earlier this year, the band confronted an audience member at their Boston concert who spent the entire show holding up what Casey described as the “true Nazi edition” of the all-black MAGA hat popularised by Elon Musk.
During that Boston performance, Casey addressed the crowd directly about the incident: “If you’re in a room full of people and you want to know who’s in a cult, how do you know who’s in a cult? They’ve been holding up a fucking hat the whole night to represent a president.”
The band’s political activism extends beyond individual performances, with their 2022 appearance at the Great Allentown Fair in eastern Pennsylvania becoming a viral moment. Casey later reflected on that experience, telling Rolling Stone: “I felt like we were playing a MAGA flea market. Every other table was selling the MAGA gear and the ‘Fuck Joe Biden’ gear and all this stuff. I was a little overwhelmed and befuddled. It was like I was dropped into another planet.”
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Casey has been explicit about the band’s motivations for their political stance, explaining during a Florida show earlier this year: “The reason we speak out, we don’t care if we lose fans, because when history is said and done, we want it known that the Dropkick Murphys stood with the people, we stood with the workers.”
