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Legendary punk/trad band THE POGUES have not toured together for over 15 years. Last Week, they arrived back in Manhattan
to play four historic shows. Kate Moss, Steve Buscemi, the newly victorious middleweight John Duddy, actor Jonathon Rhys Meyers
and thousands of screaming fans came out to see one of the music events of the year. After
early nervousness about his form Shane MacGowan triumphed.
Sean O'Driscoll was there.
As they clambered out on stage, you wanted to count them all - Spider Stacey, Phil Chevron, Jem Finer, Daryl Hunt, James
Fearnley, Terry Woods, Andrew Ranken and yes, here he is, Shane MacGowan - smoking a cigarette, sipping a water and looking
bloated and happy.
People have waited 15 years for this moment. They suffered through his non-appearance at the Dylan shows in the early
1990; they cried when the end came in a sad, dismal heap in Tokyo; they suffered through Joe Strummer as POGUES lead singer
when even he knew it was a joke ; they suffered, too through Shane MacGowan and the popes.He choose a similar sounding name
because no matter how much he drank and protested and moaned and shot up heroin, he could never escape the POGUES.
And now here they are in front of us. And people are screaming and the woman beside me is weeping giant tears that flow
down her face and wet her hair. Early reviews suggest that things are not good, that Shane is forgetful and tempremental and
slurring the words. A Notorious interview with the " Irish Voice " two weeks ago left all sorts of possibilities
open.
And now He is approaching the microphone. he opens with
" Streams of Whiskey " :
A cheer goes up. Shane lives. Somehow, after the drink and the heroin and the accidents and the punch ups, he is still
standing there when Joe Strummer and so many others have left us.
" When the world is too dark and I need some light inside of me / I'll walk into a bar and drink fifteen pints of
beer." sings MacGowan.
Once it was a lament for a sadly - lived life. Now it sounds like a boast from a man who should have died and been perfectly
preserved in the alcohol that soaked his body.
The Reviews were wrong.
Shane knows every single word and is singing them with a depth he has'nt found since the classic album " If I Should
fall from Grace with God "
How can this be? Not only is he alive, he is even dare we say it "together". " Streams of Whiskey "
is a tribute to Brendan Behan, the wasted Irish writer who destroyed his gift with drink. Shane wanted to live up to this
sad legacy before his family and Sinead O'Connor stepped in. Now he is here in front of us and singing every single syllable.
This is the part of the article where I should mention the celebrities in the audience - Steve Buscemi, Kate Moss, Jonathon
Rhys Meyers - but nobody gives a damn because the POGUES are back and this is real.
It's not, we have just discovered, just a sad attempt to rehash old material, as the recent painfully awfull Pixies reunion
might have suggested. here are the POGUES, and they are intoducing " Broad Majestic Shannon " " Or Blind man'S
s***hole as it's known locally " they tell us, and Shane is sweeping in :
" The last time I saw you was down at the greek's / There was whiskey on Sunday and tears on her cheeks / You sang
me a song as pure as the breeze."
Spider Stacey announces " The Turkish Song of the Damned " by telling us it's a tribute to the Turk who buggered
Lawrence of Arabia. Shane intervenes to clarify that the man was Irish. There is to and fro and confusion before Spider shrugs
his shoulders. He knows how to deal with Shane by now " All Right " he says eventually " He was Irish."But
the song is'nt just about Lawrence of Arabia. It's about the dead returning to haunt us, and as Shane squares up to the microphone,
he could be singing a lament for The POGUES themselves :
" The dead have come to claim a debt from thee / They stand outside your door / Four Score and three / Did you keep
a watch for the dead man's wind? "
Now it's " A Pair of Brown Eye's " and Shane has his eyes closed, his cigarette poised carefully between his
fingers.
The tempo goes down, the crowd begins to sway.
" And on the juke box / Johnny sang about a thing called love."
And the moshing middle-aged skin head knuckleheads have stopped pushing the 20 year old hipsters around and are waying
too.
When Shane is finished breaking hearts with a tale of lost youth, it's back to aggravation.
The next song is " White City " we are told. " If you do'nt know what this is about, F**k it ". Fifteen
years ago, the POGUES were tired of explaining that the song is not about the demise of the European race, it's about the
demise of the Greyhound Racetrack, torn down with the old neighborhoods to make way for the bland suburban parking lots. If
the POGUES have a message, it just might be that life lived a drunken stupor on the edge of society is better than living
out your last in an anonymous suburban nightmare of tireless streets and crushing monotony.
" Oh the torn up ticket stubs / From a Hundred Thousand mugs," sings MacGowan " Now washed away like dead
dreams in the rain / And the car parks going up / And they're pulling down the pubs."
He is swinging the microphone stand back and forth and people are screaming. he goes on one of his many excursions to
the back of the stage. Spider Stacey is having to deal with the increasing rowdiness at the front. " Come here and I'll
give you a kick in the pillox." He says playfully, anticipating the lyric's to " The Old Main Drag."
" I was picked up by the coppers and kicked in the balls / Between the metal doors at vine street, I was beaten and
mauled."
Shane is holding his hands to his face as he sings. His right hand is running slowly down his cheek.
"And they ruined my good looks for the old main drag,"
He sings as he presses against his bloated, pale cheek. You know he just isn't just singing for the tax money. This has
really happened and it is painful.
" And on a cheerfull note " says Spider as one of Shane's most dire songs winds to an end. Soon, He is swinging
back into " Body of an American." The crowd is going wild because they know the chorus, sung by every irish immigrant
who has ever heard the POGUES.
They scream it loud : " I'm a free born Man of the USA." The clenched fists rise into the air like a forest.
They know every word of the verses :
" Fifteen minutes later / we had our first taste of whiskey / There was Uncle's giving lectures / On ancient Irish
history."
Shane is on form and now he's showing off. Where once, towards the sad end days of the POGUES, he was often found passed
out backstage, now he is balancing a glass of water on his head, his arms out wide in triumph.
He launches into a triumphant " Bottle of Smoke," a song, he explains, about the short term delight of winning
at the horses. And suddenly, inexplicably, after " The Sickbed of Cuchulainn," he is extolling the virtues of "
Brokeback Mountain." " He's seen it 17 times," says Spider as they
walk off stage.They need hardly have bothered with the walk
as they are back onstage again for " Star of the County Down " and " The Boys from the County Hell."
" Stay on the other side of the road / Cause you can never tell " sneers Shane. " We've a thirst like a
gang of devils / We're the boys from the County Hell."
And yes, we were all waiting for the next song and we knew it was coming. Jem Finer's impossibly beautiful daughter Ella
is wheeled out for " Fairytale of new York." The most famous of all POGUES classics is made all the more poignant
with the death of former duet partner Kirsty MacColl whose
family are still fighting for the truth about her death in Mexico in 2000. As Shane and Ella break into the weeping melody,
fake snow is falling from the ceiling. They are dancing together, almost disappearing off the back of the stage while a younger
generation of POGUES Fans sighs.
After a rousing " Fiesta " the POGUES are done.
They have proved themselves at last.
This is not the fat, greasy and out of breath Pixies singing a lame version of " Monkey gone to Heaven " to
fans desperately searching for lost youth.
The POGUES are something altogether more vital.
Younger fans came to hear what their older siblings were talking about, and they came away learning something new.
Afterwards, I meet an emotional Ella Finer, whose Mother came up with the idea for " Fairytale of New York "
and whose Father wrote the music. She is over-awed to take Kirsty's role." She was an amazing family friend and we loved
her so much. This is a very emotional thing for me. I find it difficult to talk about it." she says. She speaks for us
all.
For more photos, check out
www.ShaneMacGowan.net
©Irish Voice 2006
Reprinted with permission.
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