Everybody Dance NOW

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• September 22, 2025

My buddy and comedian friend, Chris Roach, hit me up because he had an extra (VIP) ticket to see the Dropkick Murphy’s at Pier 17. Before me, Roach had contacted our mutual hilarious friend, Dennis Rooney, to go to the concert, but he was busy, so Roach comes to me and goes, “I need to give this ticket to someone I can tolerate.” Laughing, I text back, “I’m glad that’s where our friendship stands… tolerance.”

But I warned him! Concert Lori isn’t for the faint of heart. People either love me or hate me, and there’s little in between, because I like to drink and dance. A lot. Like both of those things, a lot. Most of the time at rock shows, I’m dancing and high fiving people and smoking joints, having the best time. But, occasionally, people get mad at my goofy antics and I’ve been yelled at by people behind me to sit down. Pier 17 is all standing, but even at places with seats, if it’s a rock concert, I’m going to get up and dance. And sorry, I’m not really sorry if you’re behind me and don’t like it. Because, first of all, we’re at a rock show. I know musicians, personally. They want to see people moved to get out of their seats and dance. The biggest compliment for a musician is people dancing. Girls like me are their favorite. Secondly, I’m a cute girl. And if you’re especially a dude complaining that a hot girl is shaking her ass in her your face then, my dude, do you have problems. You should be paying for my ticket!

My favorite concert buddy is my Mom. We have also been yelled at before for dancing too much at concerts together (sorry, we have SO  MUCH fun). My second favorite concert buddy is my friend, Greg, who is a viciously good guitar player himself. Greg and I basically live for going to rock and roll shows. It’s one of the greatest things in life. I actually don’t understand people who don’t enjoy live music. We are not the same.

Greg has seen it all with me being a raving lunatic, jumping up and down, singing, dancing, yelling “let’s gooooo,” and air-guitaring. At a Modest Mouse/Pixies show, this older woman came up to us after saying she “watched me the whole time” because she thought it was great how I just let go and had so much fun. Not a care in the world. While I’ll take the compliment, it’s almost weird to me that anyone would act any other way at a concert. What are we even doing as a people if we can’t enjoy great music?

Recently, when Greg and I were at The Who concert at MSG, the dudes behind us yelled at us for standing and dancing, which Greg politely explained to them, “this is a rock show and we are going to dance for some of it.” Because we’re good people, we sat down some of the time. But then I was rocking in my seat and the guys behind us were like, “why aren’t you dancing?” So they came around in the end, I guess. They were older, so maybe they had bad knees or something and couldn’t stand the whole time. But also, most of MSG was standing. Also, also, if you are a sixty year old man and you complained to Rodger or Pete that a cute 36 year old with almost no body fat kind of blocked your view from dancing, I’m pretty sure those legends would not see me as the problem here.

Anyway, so I ended up meeting my buddy Roach at Pier 17 for the Dropkick Murphy’s. If you don’t know them, you can probably figure out by their name they are a Boston Irish punk rock band that is properly pissed at the world. I only really knew a few of their songs, but enough that I was happy to go. The VIP section of Pier 17 is awesome— I’d highly recommend it. We had two bars (one inside and one outside), a reserved section in front of the stage, and free food. Roach, who calls himself my “big brother in comedy,” is a tall dude, over six foot. We drank and danced and had a great time. But something funny happened I remember…

There was another guy in this VIP section who was a huge fan, so much so, he was wearing a full kilt. He was probably in his 40s, with hair longer than mine. He was really stoked for the show. Kind of like how I would be for Modest Mouse. He danced many jigs, and would go arm in arm with strangers, swinging them around (including me!). At one point, he started bumping into the guys next to him. Almost like what you would do if you were starting a mosh pit. Now, The Dropkick Murphy’s have been around a while so, so have their fans. I’m sure once upon a time there were mosh pits at these shows. However, I’m on the younger side of this crowd. The people are here to rock, but most people here were also at the age where we all are suffering from some sort of ache or pain. I got worried because I really thought a fight was going to break out. Suddenly, one of the guys he bumped into grabbed him and started whispering in his ear. And I thought, “oh shit, they’re gonna fight. I gotta get outta here,” as I’m not trying to be anywhere near men fighting at the risk of taking a loose elbow to face or something. I inched closer to my giant friend, Roach. But that’s not what happened. Suddenly, they both laughed and they literally hugged each other, calling one another “bro.” And I thought, I’m not exactly sure what I witnessed, but this is beautiful. My assumption is the guy told him to settle down and the other guy was like, “my bad, I’m drunk,” and to see these two alpha male types hug it out was really a special thing.

I was already in a pretty good mood because I had a proper buzz and was listening to live music with my long time comedy brother, but that little moment elevated the night to another level for me. And I share this little story with you as some sort of proof that conflict can be avoided with cooler heads and bigger hearts (haru, haru!). To quote the band themselves, “the enemy never slew ya, Johnny I hardly knew ya.”

I believe in good people in bad times. I believe in compromises over conflicts. And most of all… I believe in rock and fucking roll, baby. Let’s goooooooo!!!!!!