Last night I had the opportunity to witness the Pogues in concert, in their original lineup.  Though I’ve seen them on TV a time or two, and IrishBand plays a couple of their songs, I have to confess that I’m not terribly familiar with their music.  I’m not stupid enough to pass up an opportunity to see a legendary band, though, especially for free (thanks to IrishBand’s Singer, who gave me a ticket as an early birthday present).

The crowd was surprisingly pushy and rowdy, which I don’t understand, because it’s not as if the Pogues are a rowdy band or anything.  IrishBand’s Singer got himself wedged between two people just as a third guy came and head-butted him repeatedly.  Found out about that afterwards, since our little group got separated by about the fourth song.  I kept getting pushed and squashed between tall people, which made it impossible to see (and hindered my enjoyment of the show), so I made my way to the side by one of the towers of speakers, right near the front.

The band sounded really good, especially since it was only the second night of the tour.  There was only one song (which I don’t know the name of, naturally) in which people were playing chords in the wrong order for a while, but they got back on track without much of a hitch.

I found myself thinking throughout the entire show, What must it be like to be in a band with Shane MacGowan? I can’t even begin to speculate about thinking of imagining it.  He may be the sweetest guy in the world, but the fact of the matter today is that he’s a shell of a person, ravaged by many decades of drinking and hard living.  He doesn’t have a tooth in his head, and we could only understand a handful of words the whole time, one of them being the ubiquitous “fookin’ “.   The tin whistle player appeared a bit embarrassed (or maybe exasperated) by him a couple of times.  At one point, he yelled jokingly, “This isn’t rock and roll, this is patricide!”

My favorite part of the show actually happened after the show was officially over.  The band had just exited the stage, with the exception of Shane, who was standing at the microphone with his wine bottle, basking in the crowd’s adulation and trying to figure out how to get off of the stage.  The house lights hadn’t come up yet, but the sound men had just turned on some exit music for us, which happened to be “Good Times, Bad Times” by Leaden Dirigible.  Shane stayed at the mic and slurred along with the song, and played an air-guitar solo on his wine bottle.  The tin whistle player came back to join him, the microphones were turned back on, and the two guys sang and rocked out to their hearts’ content.  After the song ended, they walked off with a wave, the house lights came up, and we knew we had witnessed a special and spontaneous moment.

All I had with which to capture that special and spontaneous moment was the camera in my phone, and here’s what I got.  Luckily, it came out surprisingly good, all things considered.

pogues

I had a good time at the show, but not a great time.  I’m very glad to have had the opportunity to see them, and I’ll certainly give them their due, but I also have to admit that I wasn’t overly impressed.  I’ll be the first to admit, however, that I may be missing the boat on this one.  I’m going to scrounge up a copy of “Rum, Sodomy & the Lash” and give it a listen, or two, or maybe even three.

And I’m still going to enjoy playing their songs with IrishBand, with a whole new appreciation for them.

In other news, my birthday is rapidly approaching.