Shane on the banjo

[Arjan Kerr]

A friend whose late father was a photographer,recently came across a massive folder labelled Pinkpop 88.Inside the folder there were hundreds of photos ,which presumably were taken at the 1988 Pinkpop in Landgraaf NL.According to the info sheet, The Pogues played on Monday afternoon and there are at least 50 photos of the band,the one thing that stood out from most of the pics,was a young Shane wearing a fur cap and playing the banjo!Country Jem Finer appeared to be absent.Are there any Pogues veterans who was there that day have any recollections of Pogues at Pinkpop? The photos are amazing,i don't think my friend wants to part with them,though he has given me copies,lekker!

[Low D]

Well ask him for permission to scan 'em and put them on the web, please!

Shane did play banjo on stage in this era, you can see him doing this in the "Live at the Town and Country" film. You can also sort of hear him playing strummed rhythm banjo on Steve Earle's "Johnny Come Lately". Great clip of that session from the " Completely Pogued" documentary here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK_TZY7pihU

[Mike from Boston]

Stolen from the PoguesLive.com site:

23-May-88
Pinkpop Festival, Landgraaf, The Netherlands
70 min.
The Battle March Medley / Sally MacLennane / The Broad Majestic Shannon / If I Should Fall From Grace With God / Lullaby Of London / Streams Of Whiskey / Metropolis / A Rainy Night In Soho / Thousands Are Sailing / Bottle Of Smoke / Streets Of Sorrow-Birmingham Six / Johnny Come Lately / Dirty Old Town / Turkish Song Of The Damned / Fiesta / The Sick Bed Of Cuchulainn / Honky Tonk Women

Without Jem Finer, Shane MacGowan on banjo. "Fiesta" was broadcast on MTV, along with a 5 minute interview with Shane (see Videos).

[Alex]

when i read this i went through my collection and found a radio broadcast from that show: you can't hear Shane's banjo strumming - maybe it wasn't plugged in

[DzM]

Shane on banjo? I seem to recall this has been kicked about before but can't seem to find a more exhaustive conversation about it. There is this from Mr. Chevron though:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6047&p=91571#p91571

And there's also this:

http://www.pogues.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 522#p91522

[Doktor Avalanche]

And there's also this:

viewtopic.php?p=91522#p91522

Ah, MacRua, we hardly knew ye.

[John McGovern]

I know that Shane played banjo at the T & C gigs in March '88,i can also recall he played throughout the French and German tours that followed,i was present at most of those shows and i was definetely there at Pinkpop in Nederland, i have a couple of snaps of Shane strumming away! I remember a Dutch photographer taking several pictures of Shane and i,one of which was included in the OOR annual[OOR is a Dutchmusic mag btw]however i was missing from the published pic,oh well thats showbiz.That was a great festival,the only other Pinkpop i attended was in 1995 and THAT was non too memorable.