Hi everyone,

The January/February/March/April shows are starting to sell out and we know some of you are disappointed you missed out on getting your tickets. It’s not always easy for us to know which shows are going to sell out early so please always buy your tickets as soon as we announce the details.

Also, we’re happy to announce the support bands for the US dates are Big D & The Kids Table and Everybody Out. Yes, we’re taking Boston on the road again!

For Europe we will be joined on some of the dates by Against Me! a band we have wanted to do shows with for a long time so that should be some fun times.

Hi everyone,

We have announcement we need to make about the band and we’re going to let Marc start things off:

Dear DKM friends & fans,

You may have heard some talk that I am going to stop playing with the Dropkick Murphys. I wanted to confirm that the rumors are true and I am leaving the band. I’m very grateful for everything playing with DKM has brought me and I’m sad to be going but I feel like the time has come for me to try working on different styles of music and some of my own projects, I’m ready to spread my wings as they say.

I’ve been pickin’, ticklin’, strummin’, squeezin’, crashin’, trashin’ and smashin’ with the Dropkicks for many years and am proud to have been a part of all the achievements and success we’ve had. However the greatest achievement of all has been the friends I’ve made and the people I’ve met along the way. Everyone has always supported me and the rest of the guys 100% in everything we’ve done which makes my leaving all the more difficult.

I’m very anxious and excited to see where the road takes me. DKM are (of course) going to continue on and Tim Brennan will be taking my place playing guitar, Tim is one of the greatest musicians around and I know he’ll do an amazing job. I wish him and the band all the best for the future and thank all the guys so much for everything they’ve done for me and for giving me a chance to see the world and play in one of the best punk rock bands around. I am going to miss you all and can’t tell you how lucky I feel to have been given the opportunity to play in DKM. Thank you all DKM fans everywhere. DKMs alive! Keep listening!

Marc Orrell.

It goes without saying that we’re very sad to see Marc go but we’ll always be great friends and he will be part of the Dropkick Murphys family forever. Just like the mafia, once you’re in you can’t get out! Marc has told us he wants his music to go in a different direction and we all agreed that some of the new musical styles he wants to explore just aren’t going to fit in with the Murphys sound. Marc and the rest of us all feel that preserving the Dropkick Murphys style the fans have come to know and expect should be the main priority. As Marc mentioned above Tim will be moving over to playing guitar and another great friend of ours and fellow Boston guy Jeff DaRosa will be taking over Tim’s old duties. Jeff is another super talented musician and has been tight with us since our days playing at the Rat and will be familiar to you from bands he has been in previously like the Pinkerton Thugs and The Vigilantes (whose record we released on our label many years ago).

We want everyone to know that we are still very committed to Dropkick Murphys and making our fans happy. As you all already know Tim is an extremely accomplished guitar player and musician so the transition is going to be very smooth. DKM will continue on with the same dedication, effort and heart we always have and we want you all to know Marc’s leaving will not change any of our forthcoming plans. This is just another bump in the DKM rocky road.

Ken, Matt, Al, James, Tim & Scruffy.

January 18, 2008

We have made available a small number of tickets for the show March 15th at Tsongas Arena in Lowell MA. These tickets were originally put aside for our family & friends to purchase. If you want tickets for this show please purchase them NOW as the quantity available is extremely limited.

There is a two ticket limit per credit card/address to try and keep the scalpers from getting their hands on too many of them.

Click on this link

Go to the “VIP ticket” drop box, select your tickets & enter the password; flannigans

We are still working on details for adding another show or shows and will send those out to you as soon as we have them. Also, for the people that were querying our saying the hockey playoffs were affecting our ability to get a venue, we meant the Hockey East Association not the NHL. The college teams in the area have reserved Tsongas Arena, The Garden & Agganis Arena on that weekend so unless one of the teams becomes officially out of the running for the playoffs the venues are currently unavailable for bookings. This could change over the next few weeks. We’re not just trying to book an arena show, other smaller club venues in the Boston area are also booked out. We still have not given up!

Sorry everyone but Ticketmaster were not able to get the link ready in time for the extra tickets we are making available for the Tsongas show 3/15 to go on sale today.

We will be up and running tomorrow and will send you out the details as soon as everything is locked in.

In the meantime you can check out on Youtube our performance on David Letterman from last week. Also, the version of “I’m Shipping Up To Boston” we recorded especially for Dave is available on the Late Show website for another week.

We appreciate your patience while we continue working on our plans to make more tickets available for the Boston St Patrick’s Day shows.

Apologies for not getting a message out to everyone sooner but we didn’t have an update on the situation until now.

The obvious solution to this problem would be to add another show. Unfortunately that is not as simple as it sounds. There are problems with securing venues in the Boston area for multiple reasons; hockey playoffs, red tape with getting permits from the City and finding an available venue that has a general admission floor or a big enough capacity to accommodate everyone.

Thanks for all your venue suggestions, we have been following up on them and we think we have two options that may come through. As soon as there are any details on potentially adding another show we’ll let you know.

In the meantime we are going to make some more tickets available tomorrow (Wednesday 1/16) for the Tsongas show 3/15. We have a small amount of tickets that were allocated for the band’s friends & family to buy and we’re releasing those to you to try and help take care of some of the people that missed out.

An email will go out tomorrow as soon as we have those tickets available for purchase.

Also, please be aware with scalpers and online ticketing agents, a lot of the time those people don’t always actually have the large number of tickets they seem to be offering. Sometimes they use ploys to make it seem like they have tickets when they may not and the prices of those tickets will come down if no one buys from them. Especially this early on when most of the tickets have not even been sent out yet. We urge you not to buy through these avenues unless we advise you that all our shows are absolutely 100% sold out and there are no other options. More soon.

As of now all of the Dropkick Murphys Boston St Patrick’s Day shows are sold out.

We know a lot of you are disappointed that you were unable to get tickets today. The 2008 shows have been difficult to put together due to the Avalon being closed for remodeling and the limited number of venues that were available to us in the Boston area. Some of this year’s venues have smaller capacities than what we would have liked which is why the shows at the Paradise in particular sold out so quickly. We are trying to come up with ideas right now of how we can resolve this problem and make more tickets available.

We will be making an announcement on Monday with a further update on the situation and hope to be able to release some more tickets for the Tsongas Arena show March 15th. Until then please be patient and sit tight while we put together our plans.

Thank you for your continued support. Once again we’re blown away by what great fans we have and appreciate you guys making the effort to buy your tickets as soon as they go on sale.

Three more Boston St Patrick’s Day shows will go on sale tomorrow, Saturday January 12th at 10.00am EST:

Fri. March 14th - Local 103 IBEW Hall, Dorchester MA (all ages) tickets
Sat. March 15th - Tsongas Arena, Lowell MA (all ages) Doors open at 1.00pm tickets
Sun. March 16th - The Paradise, Boston MA (this show is 18+) tickets
Mon. March 17th - The Paradise, Boston MA (this show is 18+) tickets

ALSO, Dropkick Murphys will perform “The State Of Massachusetts” tonight on the Late Show with David Letterman (CBS 11:30pm).

As was widely reported in the media David Letterman’s production company negotiated direct with the WGA to end the strike for their writers allowing them to return to work and paving the way for DKM to appear on the show while other production companies are still being affected by the union action. Letterman is a WGA member himself.

This is DKM’s first ever performance on Letterman and we received such a favorable response that we were asked to record a second song at Dave’s request. You can check out a web exclusive performance of “Shipping Off To Boston,” on the Late Show’s website.

Dropkick Murphys will be appearing live performing “The State Of Massachusetts” on the Late Show with David Letterman next Friday January 11th. Please check your local listings for CBS air times in your city.