The Medusa Fora

Philip, I've been re-listening to the box set a lot recently due to being sat in the car driving from Manchester to London for work a few times a week. I've been a regular gig goer since the IISFFGWG album and don't recall ever seeing Maggie May live, was this performed often? Secondly I've really been enjoying some of the Spider sung numbers such has Who Said Romance is Dead and Sound of the City. Not that I didn't before but maybe didn't appreciate them as much. Any chance of some of these finding their way into future live sets? I asked Spider on twitter about sun and the moon being played live, his reply was "None Whatsoever!" so not holding out much hope for that one!

DaveG wrote:Philip, I've been re-listening to the box set a lot recently due to being sat in the car driving from Manchester to London for work a few times a week. I've been a regular gig goer since the IISFFGWG album and don't recall ever seeing Maggie May live, was this performed often? Secondly I've really been enjoying some of the Spider sung numbers such has Who Said Romance is Dead and Sound of the City. Not that I didn't before but maybe didn't appreciate them as much. Any chance of some of these finding their way into future live sets? I asked Spider on twitter about sun and the moon being played live, his reply was "None Whatsoever!" so not holding out much hope for that one!

"Maggie May" was probably only in our live show for a very short time in late 1987; I'm pretty sure it had gone by March 1988. Occasionally, we just lobbed in these covers because they were fun to do.

As far as I know, Spider doesn't much like "The Sun and the Moon" anymore (I happen to have a more favourable opinion of it) so "None whatsoever" sounds about right.

In general, we're circumspect about adding numbers performed by people other than Shane, in part because we like the balance the way it is but also because it fuels all those ridiculous "Shane was so incoherent that Terry/Philip/Spider was obliged to take over at centre mike while MacGowan left the stage" reports from journalists who can't be arsed to do their research or ask our stage management or press officer for a set list.

Thanks for the reply Philip, glad someone else is a fan of The Sun and The Moon as I love it. I understand your take on those lazy writers and I still look forward to any Pogues gig as much, if not more than I did 20-odd years ago but listeneing to these songs again made me curious. Yeh the version of Maggie May is really good and sounds like you were having fun.