The Pogues

Christmas time; time for The Pogues. The inventors of Celtic Punk are back touring the UK arenas with one Shane MacGowan in tow. The crowd are drunk, but not as much as the frontman, who saunters onto the stage later than his fellow band members. Very much worse for wear, after struggling to understand any of the words out of his mouth I give up and just focus on the music. More and more water is brought to him onstage but does not seem to elevate the toxins already consumed. The band do a great job at keeping up with the singer, though they must have had plenty of practice, they can adapt to the varying vocal speed without making it too obvious; amazing for the amount of members there are.

Shane disappears for a few tracks and leaves the vocal duties to the rest of the band, which is the first time you can make them out, though the tracks do not entice the crowd to swagger and jig as they do when Shane is seen.



He shuffles back on stage and proceeds to sing (if you can call the dad’s-had-a-few-too-many-and-is-on-the-karaoke style of singing that). He swings the microphone around, banging it on the stand and when he drops it swings around on the mic stand. This occurs a few times, with much of his focus like it is an olympic sport for the drunk.

The second encore is where the not too dedicated Pogue fans get a treat, with ‘Fairytale Of New York’ and ‘Fiesta’ as the last two songs. The female vocals this time for the great Christmas track are supplied by a young woman who to be fair is not up to the job, and her dance at the end of the track with Shane is cringe-worthy to watch, though personally I would not like to be in her shoes. The blaze of fake snow tries to cover it up but she can not get off the stage quick enough.


Then final song ‘Fiesta’ makes the entire venue move, with Spider Stacy banging his head on a metal tray for a percussion effect. Shane tries this at the end with a plastic tray, but the song has already finished and he is the last one off stage. Verdict: the band are great, MacGowan gets the crowd going but holds the band back.

Setlist for the show:

Streams of whiskey
If i should fall from grace with god
The broad majestic shannon
Turkish song of the damned
Young ned of the hill
A pair of brown eyes
Boys from county hell
White city
Tuesday morning
Kitty
Sayanara
Repeal
Sunny side of the street
The body of an american
Lullaby of london
Thousands are sailing
Dirty old town
Bottle of smoke
The sickbed of cuchulainn

Sally maclennane
Rainy night in soho
Dog

Poor paddy
The auld traingle
Fairytale of new york
Fiesta

FUTURE GIGS