Summer of Discontent Tour 2025
Dropkick Murphy’s, Bad Religion, The Mainliners
Sunday, August 17, 2025 Tag’s Summer Sound Stage, Big Flats, NY
Score: 4 out of 5 stars
I know what you might be thinking: Where, and what is a Big Flat? Big Flats is a small town in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. Not really a place known for its punk rock scene. The venue for the show was a place called Tag’s. You are quite likely to catch a country or classic rock concert on the Tag’s Summer Stage, but this night, the Summer of Discontent Tour was rolling into town.
Opening the show was a newer band out of Hollywood, California, called The Mainliners. I was not familiar with The Mainliners prior to the show, as I haven’t kept up with the punk scene over the past few years. I thought the young punks from the West Coast did a solid job warming up the stage and the crowd for the more experienced acts that would follow.
Next up on stage was the band I was truly here for: Bad Religion. A name known by many, even outside of the punk scene. The boys in Bad Religion have been going strong since their inception in Los Angeles, back in 1980. Forty-five years later, and these guys are still knocking it out of the park.
Greg and the boys opened up with the title track off of the album “Recipe for Hate” and continued to travel through a set of songs spanning their full catalog of releases, including tracks such as “New Dark Ages”, “Generator”, “Modern Man”, and the very well known “American Jesus”. On top of a killer set list, I can’t say enough how impressed I was with the tightness of musicianship and the sound quality!
Closing out the show was the mighty Dropkick Murphys out of Quincy, Massachusetts. While I’ve never been a fan of their sound, the Murphys have perfected their craft of punk rock infused with a Celtic flair. Their sound was spot-on, and all cylinders were firing at optimum levels. They bring great energy to the stage and really know how to get the crowd fired up!
All in all, I was quite impressed by the show. Big Flats was the final stop of the tour and all of the bands brought it. If the rest of the shows were even half as good as this one, I’d say “The Summer of Discontent Tour” left the majority of the audience feeling very content.
Bad Religion Setlist:
1.) Recipe for Hate
2.) Supersonic
3.) You Are (the Government)
4.) Candidate
5.) No Control
6.) Struck a Nerve
7.) New Dark Ages
8.) Modern Man
9.) My Sanity
10.) I Want to Conquer the World
11.) Fuck Armageddon… This Is Hell
12.) Fields of Mars
13.) Do What You Want
14.) True North
15.) Atomic Garden
16.) We’re Only Gonna Die
17.) Generator
18.) You
19.) 21st Century (Digital Boy)
20.) Infected
21.) Cease
22.) Anesthesia
23.) Sorrow
24.) American Jesus
Dropkick Murphy’s Setlist:
1.) The Boys Are Back
2.) Who’ll Stand With Us?
3.) The State of Massachusetts
4.) Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ya
5.) Streetlights
6.) (F)lannigan’s Ball
7.) You’ll Never Walk Alone
8.) Boys on the Docks
9.) American Land
10.) Citizen C.I.A.
11.) Chesterfields & Aftershave
12.) Finnegan’s Wake
13.) Kids Games
14.) School Days Over
15.) Going Out in Style
16.) Bury the Bones
17.) The Hardest Mile
18.) Rose Tattoo
19.) Worker’s Song
20.) I’m Shipping Up to Boston
21.) The Big Man
Review Jason Forsythe
Photos: Adam Lawton