With a current headlining tour that’s selling out clubs across the country and the galvanizing new Sing Loud, Sing Proud! (Hellcat) in stores, local jig-punk institution Dropkick Murphys stopped home as one of the hottest punk bands in the land last Saturday. What’s more, it was St. Patrick’s Day — a green-letter day on the Dropkicks calendar if there ever was one. There were lines around the corner to see live Irish music at just about every bar in town, but none longer than the ones for the two Dropkicks shows at Avalon.

The 6 p.m. event was the Dropkicks’ fourth in two days — a challenge for any band, even a crew of road-tested punks like themselves. But the group weren’t about to let weariness spoil good craic, and the energy level in the booze-drenched room just continued to rise as their 90-minute set went on. Shamrocks and horseshoes hung from the ceiling, and the bagpipes and tin whistle of the opening “For Boston” got the slamdancing underway. A flurry of new songs followed before the boi!-sterous oldie “Barroom Hero” shifted things into high gear with its crowd-sung a cappella intro.

As friends and family huddled on stage behind the band, the Dropkicks toasted their first St. Patrick’s Day at home in years with their signature covers of “Finnegan’s Wake” and “The Wild Rover.” The stage got even more crowded when they pulled a bunch of girls out of the audience to dance along to “The Spicy McHaggis Jig,” a loving ode to the group’s bagpipe specialist and number one ladies’ man. The set reached a climax with the bare-bones working-class anthems “Never Alone” and “Boys on the Docks,” the latter of which led into their sing-loud, slam-harder version of “Amazing Grace.” And since no Dropkicks show is complete without a couple of classic rock covers, they encored with Creedence’s “Fortunate Son” (dedicated somewhat humorously to the local hardcore gang FSU) and AC/DC’s “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” (as part of the show-stopping “Skinhead on the MBTA” dance-along that ended the set).

Focusing on the punk side of the Dropkicks’ Irish-punk equation, the undercard rolled along with the scaled-down efficiency of the Warped Tour. Swingin’ Utters supplied the sneering Cali pop punk and Boston’s Reach the Sky brought the good-time mosh, but it was Rancid folk hero Lars Frederiksen who stole the show with his new punk pick-up band, the Bastards. The former Dropkicks producer hammed it up for the crowd, donning all sorts of Red Sox gear and proclaiming his hatred of hippies as he introduced the veterans’ ode “Vietnam.” The Bastards proved an ace backing band, equally adept at both menacing speed punk and good old-fashioned rock-and-roll sleaze.