The Pogues

[ratty]

Wonderful tonight at Brixton! Anyone else go?

[Sue]

F*** forgot they were on :-$

[Kingy]

you scumbag --- you faggot

[Keef]

Have had 2 offers of free tickets, but unfortunately can't make it this year. Have seen them 3 times and it always makes me feel like christmas has arrived.

[mockney piers]

The missus is gutted she hasn't gone this year. She even managed it 8 months pregnant last year, and I swear the mocklet had a knowing grin as we played the pogues whilst decorating the tree this year.

[giggirl]

No I missed them but I saw Camille O'Sullivan on Saturday night and she sang Fairy Tale of New York (quite wonderfully) with her band, as an encore. Shane is the best. How is he still alive though?

[ratty]

My missus - at 6 months preggy - gave it a miss in the end. I would have got into a fight if she was there as there were a lot of A-Holes about!

[Mick Mac]

giggirl Wrote:

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> No I missed them but I saw Camille O'Sullivan on

> Saturday night and she sang Fairy Tale of New York

> (quite wonderfully) with her band, as an encore.

> Shane is the best. How is he still alive though?

Speaking on BBC Four's Folk Britannia television programme (first broadcast February 2006), Robyn Hitchcock recalled: "I remember going to the Hope and Anchor [a pub where many folk punk acts played in London]. The Pogues were all on stage and ready, it was a full house, but they hadn't started yet. Then this character shambled in through the door and shambled downstairs. I thought, 'Jesus, you're not letting that guy in are you?'. Then he walked on stage. That guy was Shane MacGowan."

He has suffered physically from his years of binge drinking; he is notorious for performing while drunk, and was often impaired in interviews; on the BBC TV political magazine programme This Week MacGowan gave incoherent and slurred answers to questions from Janet Street-Porter about the public smoking ban in Ireland.

On 7 September 2002 MacGowan became so intoxicated before a performance at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin that he stopped singing and threw up over fans in the front row. Fiona Wynne wrote in the Daily Mirror that the consequent criticism of the behaviour of MacGowan "who was in a wheelchair after breaking his leg" led Sin?ad O'Connor to call Joe Duffy's RT? Liveline programme three days later to defend MacGowan, saying: "He is an angel near the end who needs support. He's too far gone to stop drinking; he has an illness that cannot be cured, and as far as I can see, the end is near for him".[10]

Conversely, MacGowan's fianc?e Victoria Mary Clarke claims that although his alcoholism was so bad that the two had to split up at one point, "[shane] loves a drink and he probably always will. But he drinks less than people think and I haven?t seen him drunk for quite some time", suggesting that his enjoyment of alcohol is in moderation, and perhaps not as dire or life-threatening as most of his fans believe.

[Keef]

When I saw them in about 2004, he was terrible, and had to go off stage several times for rests. The 2 times I've seen them since then though, he has been fine.

[Mick Mac]

Maybe he is gradually getting his life back on track.

Interesting that he won a literary schoarship into Westminster School, so there is some educational foundation to the musical "genius" tag that he sometimes has attributed to him.

[ratty]

Been following the Pogues since 1985 and have seen them so many times. Shane did one of his better performances last night!

Sally Maclannan was amazing!

[Jah Lush]

I first saw them at the Hammersmith Palais supporting Elvis Costello & The Attractions back in '82 or '83 and they blew him completely off stage. It was downhill after they finished their set with the crowd won over and baying for more. That's still the best time I've ever seen them and I've seen them a quite few times since but not in a good ten years now.

[giggirl]

I didn't discover the Pogues until the late 80s, just before they sacked Shane. To be fair they had cause; he spent many a set shambling around spilling his beer and trying to light his cigarette and singing seemed way down on his list of priorities. I saw a few shows with Joe Strummer before Shane returned. Shane is the best though. As shambolic as he is he has magic in spades.

[flapjackdavey]

Kingy Wrote:

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> you scumbag --- you faggot

cheap lousy something or other .

[giggirl]

Happy christmas your arse

[DJKillaQueen]

Don't want to be a downer on the thread but I do object strongly to the use of the word 'faggot'. It's not funny.

[giggirl]

It isn't supposed to be funny - it is a direct quote.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Are you kidding me? You want to ban the song as well? Do you know what you are complaining about?

"You?re a bum you?re a punk

You?re an old slut on junk

Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed

You scumbag you maggot

You cheap lousy faggot

Happy christmas your arse I pray god it?s our last."

2 winos exchanging insults and you want them to respect each other's feelings

Christ on a bike

[giggirl]

On a positive note, thank you to Ratty for starting this thread and reminding me that I haven't listened to the Pogues in yonks. I spent a happy 40 minutes queueing in the post office with Rum, Sodomy and the Lash.

[PeckhamRose]

Like Jah Lush I saw Elvis Costello at Hammersmith Palais.

I had absolutely no realisation that I had seen the Pogues as support, though.

Oops!

[Brendan]

giggirl Wrote:

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> On a positive note, thank you to Ratty for

> starting this thread and reminding me that I

> haven't listened to the Pogues in yonks. I spent

> a happy 40 minutes queueing in the post office

> with Rum, Sodomy and the Lash.

Sounds nice. What were you listening to?

[giggirl]

Well Brendan, Sally MacLennane and Waltzing Matilda are favourites. Then I switched to best of and there are just so many to choose from. Thousands are sailing, If I should fall from grace with God, Turkish Song of the damned, Bottle of Smoke, Fiesta. So much choice and so hard to narrow down to favourites. Lullaby of London would make it on to my Desert Island Disc list though. I never get tired of listening to that.

[Sue]

I've only seen The Pogues once, I think it must have been quite soon after they started out, and they were f***ing brilliant. What energy.

Their version of Gentleman Soldier still makes me laugh every time I hear it :))

[Keef]

What Sean said!

[Captain Scarlet]

jeez......they still going! aint he dead yet!