BY ROXANA HADADI / PHOTOS BY ADAM FRIED

When exactly did the Dropkick Murphys' fanbase turn into one populated by hyper-aggressive guys, their sadly submissive girlfriends and humorless people who can't take a joke? And if that's not the majority of the band's followers, then who the hell were all those people at the sold-out 9:30 Club on March 9 - imposters in droves?

After all, anything is possible. And the marked difference between the throngs of fans of the Irish hardcore band the Dropkick Murphys (recently interviewed at BLURT) and the few (and seriously, "few" here means less than 10, probably) there to see opening band Strung Out, proves that something was certainly amiss that night. Back in the day, it wasn't too much to expect that fans of the Dropkick Murphys would appreciate veteran punk band Strung Out for their decades of creativity, years of output that helped pave the way for groups like those Irish ragamuffins. But the inability of the sold-out crowd to give Strung Out any credit cast an uncomfortable air over some of the night, a sense of discord that had nothing to do with Ian MacKaye or Jeff Nelson.

The show started off with Larry and His Flask, an Oregon-based band who seems to have listened to a few too many O'Death songs, based on their eerie similarities to the Brooklyn-based, Americana-influenced punk band. Thankfully, Larry and His Flask's set (whose amateurish feel indicated their rookie status; they even admitted they don't have any recorded material yet) was over sooner rather than later, and it was time for Strung Out, the fivesome from Los Angeles.

Bringing their metal-influenced, head-bangingly enjoyable sound to the 9:30 Club, the group was frenzied and frenetic, adding a thrash-and-dash sense to the night that was largely championed by lead singer Jason Cruz (who also pens a blog for this very publication). As he stalked across the stage, occasionally striking a goofily flamboyant pose or hocking loogies toward the rafters, he was the whirlwind at the band's center. Whether spitting out yearning lines like "Show me a secret, tell me something no one else would know/ As we lose our minds and we're getting high to radio," from track "Carcrashradio," or more demanding ones, such as "How many times must we tell each other/ Lies, and separate our lives/ I wonder what went wrong/ I'm not asking for the world," from "Asking for the World," Cruz was the epicenter of the band's activity, an impressively energetic frontman who is obviously adept at pumping up crowds.

But they weren't about to let him. Instead, after Cruz started talking trash about cops, the heavily green crowd, in a sea of driver caps, kilts and shirts emblazoned with shamrocks and Boston-related motifs, turned their venom toward Strung Out.

It all began when Cruz commented that most members of the crowd looked like off-duty cops, and admonished them for not being more excited during the group's set - "Smile, motherfuckers, it ain't that bad," he declared. Then, as other members of the band further chimed in on their dislike for men in uniform and pointedly mocked the frosty demeanor of the audience, things got even uglier.

Was there loud, incessant booing? Yes. Were there middle fingers thrown up? Indeed. Did the atmosphere crackle with enough testosterone to get Robert Paulson excited? Yup, that was the case. Just imagine the feeling of a particularly toxic football crowd, and you'll get the idea: Drunken, overwhelmingly white and pathetically aggressive. That about sums it up.

So though Strung Out ended their set somewhat early, that manic sentiment lingered in the air, and only built more as the Dropkick Murphys took the stage. From when the group launched into the turbulent opener, "The State of Massachusetts," lead singer Al Barr (who, somewhat amusingly, isn't Irish) kept screaming his German-Scottish heart out, whether flanked by a trio of young female dancers jigging it up; during the group's tweaked version of traditional folk song "The Black Velvet Band"; or toward the end of crowd-favorite "Surrender."

While Barr growled, "But I just couldn't see that the blood that's in your veins/ Is the same that runs through me," the crowd ate it up - but didn't seem to think the song could have applied to how they just had treated Strung Out. Not some kind of preachy sermon, but just a thought. (Nope, this wasn't brought to you by the Latter Day Saints. In a review of a mostly Catholic Irish band's show? Please.)