St. Patrick’s Day seems to have innumerable traditions associated with it, and a local one is almost as enduring as parades, shamrocks and green beer: the Big Bad Bollocks playing the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton.
While the venue just reopened in 2024 after a four-year closure, the Big Bad Bollocks seem to have played there since the days when St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland.
“I think this will be our 32nd or 33rd St. Patrick’s show at The Iron Horse,” frontman John Allen said in a recent interview. “In 2020, our St. Pat’s show was the first night to be cancelled, by mutual consent, due to the COVID-19 outbreak. So this year is our first time back since then.”
The pub-punk-folk band will take the stage this year on March 15 at 7 p.m. Allen said the current lineup consists of “myself, John Allen, lead vocals, brandishing occasional squeezeboxes and tin whistles, Paul ‘Pino’ Scarpino on 12-string electric guitar, backup vocals and being Italian, Bob Richards on drums and attitude, Ernie Wilson on bass and noisy ripostes.”
Bollocks’ gigs in general are raucous, booze-fueled affairs, so Allen was asked how a St. Patrick’s Day show is different from a regular one.
“It isn’t! But there is a special feeling, which comes with the time of year and proximity to St. Patrick’s Day,” he said. “Spring is starting to tickle everyone’s fancy, and the desire to celebrate is fired up in a really positive way. It’s a grand old time, and we bloody love it!”
Of course, Father Time has had a hand in toning down some of the band’s antics, but only marginally.
“I don’t stage-dive as much as I once did. Actually, I haven’t stage-dived in several years, since I injured my ankle making a quick and painful descent onto a dance floor,” Allen said. “All other forms of rowdiness remain intact – including our penchant for copious amounts of Guinness and Irish whiskey.”
While the group is not strictly an Irish band, they certainly know plenty of Irish tunes that get the Paddy’s Day crowd going.
“‘Irish Rover’ and ‘Star of The County Down’ always get a good response. But so do our own compositions and our covers of Shane McGowan/Pogues songs,” Allen said. “I would have to say that ‘Wild Irish Rover’ is a perennial St. Pat’s favorite, and this year we’ll be relaunching our rather unique cowboy version of that little gem, a version we’ve not played in many years.”
Speaking of Shane McGowan, Allen has the utmost reverence for the late singer-songwriter, who died in 2023. Allen met McGowan when he booked The Pogues at Pearl Street Nightclub on their first two tours of the U.S. in the 1980s. He also got to tag along with the band on other Northeast stops of the tour.
“Shane and The Pogues’ inspirational influence is everything really,” Allen said. “I never wanted to copy The Pogues, but I was very much inspired by their musical energy and by Shane’s brilliant songwriting. What they were doing detonated, in me, a long-suppressed desire to write songs and perform on stage.”
Reflecting on the band’s rambling and shambolic three-decade history, Allen noted that the Iron Horse also holds a special place on the band’s memories aside from the St. Patrick’s Day shows.
“When I stop to consider how long Big Bad Bollocks has been a major creative vehicle for all four of us, and the adventures it has provided us with, it just amazes me,” he said. “Especially when I recall that the band, which I started as a duo with my old friend Patrick Owens, had one goal, which was to play The Iron Horse just one time.”
