Every night and it's the same room. Or at least it looks that way. Flogging Molly takes the stage and the place explodes. Beers get hoisted - and spilled - and the audience boils and surges toward the stage. Band members hoist - and spill - their beers and boil and surge right back.

It's manic. It's intense. It does not let up. There are precious few breaks in the music, save for lead singer Dave King's toasts and brief introductions.

Every night for the past eight years it's been the same room all over the world for Flogging Molly guitarist and Rochesterian Dennis Casey. Wherever and whenever the band plays, from the first tin whistle tweet or squeeze of the accordion to the thunder of Casey's last crashing chord, the crowds go - and stay - berserk.

"I consider myself lucky," Casey says. "Because every time the band plays, that's been the reaction."

It had seemed like the same room - with a lot less applause - when Casey slung a paint brush day after day in Hollywood before boarding the Flogging Molly ship in 1999.

"It was a huge apartment complex," he says. "There were like 500 units in it. When you have that many units, there are so many people moving out and in, it was never a complete job. In one month I'd paint, like, 20 apartments. It was like a Sisyphus kind of thing; hobble the wheel up the hill and the next day there would be like five more apartments to paint."

Casey had initially moved out west in 1991, with Rochester rocker Joe Brucato, to shop for a record deal. When that fell through, Casey remained in California playing with various bands, auditioning for others, and painting apartments.

"Those eight years... that's when I say I paid my dues," he says. "At that point I just wanted to play out."

The L.A. scene proved to be tough. Casey hated his job, had gotten evicted, and struggled overall. Often gigs were a downer, too.

"Playing a gig and there's five people there," he says, "and you've worked all day...it's hard to give it your all."

A mutual friend had turned King onto Casey. So when Casey got the call, the choice was clear.

"I was like, Yeah, fuck yeah. I wanna join this band right now," he says.

Flogging Molly's music is a beautifully vicious dichotomy. It's Godzilla and a leprechaun in a mosh pit. The exuberant acoustic bounce and high spirit of traditional Irish jigs and reels collide with the electrified rock end of the band. Within the flurry and bursts of the band's frenetic music heaven and hell are in a dead heat.

Casey was - and is - a perfect fit.

With his clean-shaven head parked beneath a tweed applejack and his affinity for suspenders and crisp shirts, Casey looks like something out of the Bowery circa 1950. He plays heavy and loud at speeds so fast that his right arm is practically invisible. He does this, all while rabidly running in circles, throwing high-kicks with the downbeats, shouting background vocals, and toasting the crowd. Casey's guitar strap serves more as a seat belt. And he's not alone; when Flogging Molly plays the whole stage is like some kind of Irish demolition derby ballet.

But beneath this tantrum and joy lies the band's beauty. King's songs are passionate, full of Catholic lament, working-class bravado, and the type of melancholy that can erupt into joy after a few pints. Melodically he is a master, writing fist-pumping, sing-along anthems that work their way into people's heads immediately.

These songs are strong enough to stand alone in a purely traditional pub scene; however, Flogging Molly chooses to fire them out in an accelerated, amplified setting. Some traditionalists might consider this sacrilegious, a tainting of Celtic strains. Casey and his electric guitar, along with bass and drums, may very well be the irreverent bastard half of the band's equation. He's not so sure.

"Bastard?" he says. "If you listen to really traditional Irish music, the instrumental stuff like the Ceili dances, they get pretty intense. Even the recordings from the '20s, it's just the traditional instruments but you can hear an intensity to it. And I think if you throw a heavy guitar, bass, and drums behind, it just embellishes it even more."

Flogging Molly's brand of embellishment has brought young fans to the traditional side, and when the band plays Irish festivals, the Celtic twist draws folks who would never consider going to a rock club or Warped Tour to the rock.

Flogging Molly earned its name by playing relentlessly every Monday night at Molly Malone's on Sixth Street in Hollywood. The band had branched out a bit but had yet to tour. A West Coast jaunt was scheduled to begin one week after Casey's audition.

"The rehearsal was the audition," he says. "That was it. It was go from there on. It just felt right. I was onto something big. I said, ‘Musically this is good, there's a lot of potential here, good musicians, a lot you could do.' And they were playing small places, but the places were packed."

Warped Tour the following year, residency dates in New York City, and a national tour supporting The Mighty Mighty Bosstones launched Flogging Molly into the stratosphere. It hasn't stopped since. Casey figures he's on the road eight months a year.

The band will pause briefly to record its next album in Blackwater, a little village in the southeast of Ireland where King and fiddle player Bridget Regan live.

Then it's back on the road to that same old room where night after night the crowd goes bananas, the beer flows freely, and Flogging Molly puts on the best show you'll ever see. For Casey, it's been like this since his very first gig with the band in San Jose eight years ago.

"As soon as we hit the stage it was like, ‘Holy shit,'" he says. "People were swinging their beers around going absolutely crazy. I was so excited and giddy. I just remember looking down at all this smashed glass and beer all over my feet. I was like, ‘Yeah, I wanna do this for the rest of my life. I love this.'"

Flogging Molly plays one of the main stages at The Vans Warped Tour Friday, August 10, Darien Lake Performing Arts Center, 9993 Allegheny Road, Darien Center, 232-1900, noon, $29.75, all ages.