The Mary Wallopers Concert Review: Rousing Pub Songs and Merry Anglophobia

The Mary Wallopers are one of the rising stars of Irish traditional music. The band gained widespread online popularity through their livestreamed gigs from the home of the Hendy brothers, Charles and Andrew, and have since expanded from the original trio (the brothers with Sean McKenna) to a seven-piece outfit. Their self-titled debut album was released in October of last year, after which the band announced their first tour in North America.

After stops in Washington and Philadelphia, they found themselves in Boston, a center of Irish culture in America, two days before St. Patrick’s Day, performing to a sold-out crowd at the Middle East’s Sonia in Cambridge. In an era when much popular and award-winning Irish traditional music has sonically ventured down a more minimalist or ambient path, the band’s promotionals promised performances akin to the rousing gigs of The Pogues and The Dubliners, the great Celtic bands of yesteryear.

At the Sonia, orange and green lights lit up the stage as the band entered. Charles’s fist pumps livened up the already energized crowd. Andrew took the stage with an “Hasta la victoria siempre” Che Guevara shirt; the band prides themselves on not shying away from Irish folk music’s inherently political nature. They cruised into their first song, a little ditty in their thick Dundalk brogues poking fun at the late Queen Elizabeth, much to the crowd’s amusement.

After the first number, the brothers addressed the elephant not in the room: Sean McKenna. They explained how he missed their American tour because of a marijuana offense, laughing the affair away in true high-spirited Mary Walloper fashion. As the crowd laughed at the misfortune of one from the original trio, the band kicked off their first jaunty pub song of the evening, “Rothsea-O.” Between verses, Andrew and Charles paused for some curse-filled banter with the audience, which the crowd embraced.

The next few numbers highlighted the band’s musical flair, showing their depth beyond the spectacle. “Oh Roger Rum,” which illustrated what happens to rich people when they “inevitably meet their untimely horrible painful death,” according to Charles, featured a three-part vocal harmony with only Charles’s bodhrán backing. “The Turfman From Ardee” showcased the band’s instrumental breadth. Andrew’s banjo and vocal intro was soon layered with drums, bass, accordion, and the uilleann pipes, turning the song into a good old fashioned session tune.

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At this point, the concert took a brief turn. The band cleared the stage while Charles stepped up to the mic with his guitar. He tried and failed to calm the audience down, finally shouting “Shut up or you’re English!” to settle the rowdy ones. His solo of the song made famous by the Dubliners, “Building Up and Tearing England Down,” momentarily hushed the crowd, aside from their brief resurgence every time the titular line was sung. At one point, Charles was hit by one of the venue's many empty cans (perhaps thrown by a solitary and slighted English royalist in the crowd), but this only fueled the song’s vitality.

Next, Andrew took his brother’s spot with only a bodhrán in hand. Like his brother, Andrew had trouble quieting the unruly audience. When he began to beat lightly on the drum, however, a hush fell over the room, and he began the haunting lament of the old John O’Halloran, an Irish laborer in “god-forsaken” England. The song’s sorrow and longing floated across the room on Andrew’s distinctive wavering yet spirited voice.

This mood was never going to last long, however, and soon the whole band returned to the stage. From the time the band played the classic Eileen Og to the end of their set, there was nothing but “Irish rock and roll” (a term they use for their music). The banjo led straight into “Cod Liver Oil & The Orange Juice,” the hit off their first EP, 2019’s “A Mouthful of The Mary Wallopers, which helped propel them to fame. The band finished with a couple of fast-paced jigs from the new album. The accordion and the pipes were stealing the show until a woman from the audience hopped up on stage between the brothers, turned to the crowd, and did an Irish stepdance routine to the music. The Mary Wallopers, good-spirited as ever, were unfazed and continued playing, much to the delight of the cheering audience.

The band could not play a finale of their three hardest-rocking tunes then leave the crowd at peak energy levels; the audience needed an encore. And, of course, The Mary Wallopers delivered. On that St. Patrick’s Day Eve Eve, the Guinness had been flowing aplenty; an ode to the “jolly jolly grog” was in order. They finished in style with the last song on their album, the Dubliners’ classic, the pub song classic, “All For Me Grog.” The dance floor quaked and the crowd all sang but Andrew’s vocals and the piercing tin whistle still cut through until the very end. On this one night, The Mary Wallopers electrified Boston with the music of the rocking Irish trad bands of yesteryear, reassuring all that the present and future of the genre are in good hands.