Shane was drunk.
Surprised?
How were his teeth?
Do you mean tooth?
Drunk and toothless?
Why…I’m stunned.
Still there’s no one that can sing the word “fuck” better in the world.
So, you got the authentic Pogues experience, then.
Not a bit. 
I didn’t get close enough to see them.
Heh. This was the most-drunk I’ve ever seen him.
They had a little trouble getting Shane onstage. I overheard someone say that he had started drinking at 11:00 and they started playing at 21:40. I was talking to a guy later who said that he had a friend who worked for the Showbox who said that Shane was at the bar asking for free drinks at one o’clock. Now, Shane, in his normal state of inebriation, is not easy to understand. Last night I couldn’t understand anything he said, except I could decipher the song titles. ‘Aaahhhhwem fwuhweme mehrewah this uz coll Boys Frah Conny Hell.’ Once he started singing though, he was mostly intelligible.
I think the teeth made him sound a little old. I just woke up, so I’m a bit fuzzy, but… Let me see… No, can’t really describe it. Just something about the way the sounds were coming out made him sound old. Of course he’s almost 52 and with a lot of mileage, and not the 19-year-old who started The Nipple Erectors or the 25- to 34-year-old he was during The Pogues’s heyday. Of course he sounds older. I have his The Snake album. I like the songs, but many of them sound like he’s just going through the motions. I didn’t get that impression at last night’s show. He sounded like the same guy I heard at all of the other shows I’ve been to – just more drunk and an ‘old man’ quality to his singing, which sounded like it was coming from his teeth. Sorry, I really can’t explain it very well.
So how was the show? Well, the first shows I went to were in a venue where the audience area was about the size of my front room, kitchen, laundry room, middle bedroom, and small bedroom combined; and that was back in the '80s. So the band was at its peak and the venue was intimate. Last night’s show wasn’t as good as those were. I saw them at the John Anson Ford Aphmhitheatre; again, at their peak. I was closer to the stage last night. At their show at The Wiltern Shane was out, in spite of Joe Strummer’s insistence in the L.A. Weekly that he wasn’t. Strummer was good, but he’s not Shane MacGowan. I was a little disappointed by that show. (At the smaller venue he and MacGowan shared the stage. That was great!) So these were the shows that I have to compare last night’s show to. After listening to The Snake I expected Shane to sound drunk, old, tired, and bored. Well, he was definitely drunk. That’s par for the course, and it wouldn’t be a Pogues show if he wasn’t! The teeth (I think) make him sound old. But happily he didn’t sound tired or bored. He put on the best show his condition would allow, and it was pretty good. No new songs, but it was good hearing the old ones again.
The worst part of the evening was that I faced a two-hour drive home, so I had to limit myself to six Guinnesses. The Pogues area really a great band to get drunk to, and I couldn’t do it. One girl apparently did. She was on the floor and paramedics had to be called in. (Could’ve been a medical problem of course, but I’d rather think she overindulged.) I think one fight broke out. There was some commotion up front, and security lead a guy in a ripped shirt out.
I got the T-shirt, a nice soccer scarf, and a Pogue Mahone flask. The prices were outrageous. A young woman whose husband is Irish said that she was just going to get a friend in Ireland to send her a scarf, as she said she could probably get one for €10. I was splitting my time between the floor and the dining area, and a young punkster had been wanting a scarf but didn’t want to pay 30 bones for it. When he saw me wearing one, he went and got one.
So. Not the best show I’ve seen, but I enjoyed it better than the one at The Wiltern. Sure, Shane sounded older, and he was more drunk than before; but he was better than I was expecting. And James Fearnley can still rock with that accordion! 
First Johnny L.A. I am glad that you enjoyed yourself and had a good evening out (I have been to the Funkbox before, and I know it is a pretty claustrophobic venue) but I have to say a hearty FUCK YOU SHANE MACGOWAN for treating your long-loyal fans like an ATM and constantly being unable to perform due to your childish drunken antics and trademark “I am an artist-alcoholic, and must be held to a different standard”
Its a shitty way to approach live performance (especialy when you charge 60 or 70 bucks for tickets) and a shitty way to treat those who have made your music a part of thier lives…
Yes, I have seen MacGowan live (NYC Guinness Fleadh Festival) and I am also flying down to New Orleans in a couple of weeks for the VooDoo Festival (on Halloween) where the Pouges are scheduled to play. Thank God there are dozens of real bands who dont take thier audience for granted who will also be playing, so I can hear some real music when MacGowan is busy pissing his pants on stage.
(Of course there is always the chance he wont be able to find any place to get drunk in New Orleans)
Unless and until you actually start to treat your fans and your music with some respect, POUGE MAHONE Shane MacGowan!!!
I’ve seen him over half a dozen times, once or twice with the Popes, usually with the Pogues. Shows have varied from a fantastic communal experience to absolutely atrocious, embarrassingly bad.
It was a good audience last night. Ages ranged from 21 to (by appearances) 60s. Lots of people were singing along.
Yep.
I’ve long said he treats St. Patrick’s Day as his own personal annuity – I would absolutely urge no one to go to those shows, or for that matter his Christmas shows, as he, drunkard though he is, is a calculating drunkard and phones in his very worstest performances for when he knows everyone will be dead drunk and caught up in the moment (and, if you’re not just happy to be seeing the Pogues on St. Patrick’s, which ain’t enough for me, you’ll objectively realize just how contemptuous he is).
Last few shows I’ve been to he’s taken to stumbling off the stage every third song or so and letting the band play their (mostly crap) own compositions. Steady on, jackass.
The best time I saw him was in Glasgow about 4 or 5 years ago. The band were amazing and on form and the crowd were mad for it. When they played Rainy Night In Soho there was nary a dry eye left in the hall.
A friend of mine is acquainted with Mr. McGowan, he was saying that the toll of his lifestyle means that even when he’s sober he appears drunk, dazed etc.
He may have started out with this nonsensical ethos (as a very talented Irish actor friend of mine did too - dude ended up drinking 2 bottles of whiskey a day, and having a stroke aged 32), but I seriously don’t think this is Shane’s motivator now. He’s a common-or-garden alkie, and I am sure his boozing is due to this, rather than any romantic notions of drinking. And he was a junkie too at some point. Might still be.
Namedrop: my brother played in a recording studio that the Pogues had been using. The sound engineer told him they had to throw away the microphone that Shane had been singing into, because his breath was so bad it had polluted it beyond cleaning.
Hm. New band name? Namedrop Reillys?
The reality is that you’re getting a better show when he’s been drinking than when he’s not. And that’s not because it’s funny to watch a drunk guy play up the drunken antics that got him famous; it’s because he’s a full-blown alcoholic (and has been for 25+ years) and he needs the alcohol to perform at all. It’s a terrible shame though, because his 80s output is among the best music I know, and I think he’s stunted his talents in many ways (though in many ways, alcohol has also been his muse, and has enabled his talents). But it’s not the place of fans to judge him for the way he lives his life; it would be naive to expect him to be sober at shows, so you clearly have the option of not buying tickets. And besides, you have to wonder about how audiences would react to a sober show (“They’re just not the same as they used to be.”).
Anyway, we all have to live our own lives; in his own words from Nick Kent’s excellent book, “The Dark Stuff”-- “I realize I’m very lucky. I get to act like them [homeless people], just in front of 10,000 people.”
by the way, regarding his teeth, check this out. It’s really shocking:
Yes and no. The reality is as you describe, but from what I’ve read and seen, he is not above playing the artiste card as a justification for what otherwise might not be accepted by everyone.
As for your last point: he got into a bit of a feud with Sinead O’Conner a few years ago when she shopped him to the police as a heroin user; not sure what came of that, but his denials were anything but categorical or convincing . . . .
That’s true. I associate the ‘drunken band’ thing with the Punk scene, which The Pogues evolved from. I don’t judge Shane; to do so would be to imply that he’s ‘bad’. But I do feel sad for him. The guy’s an amazing talent. I don’t begrudge him drink or drunkenness; but it’s a shame it has taken over his life to such an extent.
I don’t want a sober Shane MacGowan. (God forbid he should ever become Clean & Sober and start on the Evangelistic Revival Tour.) But I wish he controlled the demons, instead of them controlling him.
I would say the wheels began falling off around the time he issued the second Popes album. Effectively (minor oddities aside) he hasn’t written anything new or of value since then. He announced five years ago that he was “working on a really great double album.” How’s that coming along for you Shane?
The second Popes album was pretty weak in my opinion, though “More Pricks Than Kicks” stands among his best. The other good song, “Mother Mo Chroi” was much, much better when it was the Pogues’ “NW3”, which would have been in the top 5 best Pogues songs had they properly released it (Phil Chevron claimed that they didn’t because they couldn’t get Shane to record it properly; that said, try to dig out the demo version that’s on the Falconer tapes, which also turned up on the box set recently).
It’s years since I’ve listened to that album but I recall St. John Of God’s being another standout track. This was the last thing I saw him doing.