Dropkick Murphys to Play Free Alex Pretti, Renee Good Memorial Concert

Dropkick Murphys will host a memorial concert honoring Alex Pretti and Renée Good before their headlining concert in Minneapolis next month.

The Boston band is slated to play the Palace Theatre in St. Paul on March 6, while the free acoustic concert will take place that afternoon, starting at 1 p.m. Along with Dropkick Murphys, the concert will feature performances from local acts Wild Colonial Bhoys, DJ Jacques, Kiss the Tiger, Sophie Hiroko, Chutes, Laamar, Obi Original, and the Shackletons.

“We are so proud of how Minnesota stood up and met this moment and we are so sad for the community and for the Pretti and Good families for what they’ve gone through,” Dropkick Murphys frontman Ken Casey said in a statement. “[So] it is an honor to come down and be able to play some music for the people and let them know we stand in solidarity with them.”

The concert, which will be livestreamed, is scheduled to take place at the Black Forest Inn parking lot on 26th and Nicollet Avenue (also known as Eat Street), not far from where ICE agents killed Pretti earlier this year. The show will also double as a fundraiser for several local groups and mutual aid efforts, including rent support, Neighbors Helping Neighbors, Show Up for Eat Street, Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, and the South Minneapolis Families Fund. 

The Dropkick Murphys have long been fierce opponents of President Donald Trump and his administration. In January, after an ICE agent shot and killed Good (but before Pretti’s killing), the band announced that they’d revamped their 2005 protest song, “Citizen C.I.A.” — a mock recruitment song for the intelligence agency — into “Citizen I.C.E.” The track was released in early February.