The Medusa Fora

Review: The Pogues, O2 Academy, Newcastle

Dec 16 2010
Tom Laidlaw
Evening Chronicle

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CHRISTMAS wouldn’t be Christmas without The Pogues!

It’s the festive season and that can mean only one thing – the Pogues are back in Toon.

While the Christmas period seems to get longer and longer each year – supermarkets getting a head start as far back as October – in Pogues-world that is most certainly not the case.

Tuesday night’s gig in Newcastle was cut short, to the annoyance of some.

The reason: the band were late on stage and the O2 Academy has a strict curfew, so fans were not treated to a full show.

OK, it’s Christmas and the season of goodwill, but you pay your ticket money the same as everywhere else so you expect to get your value for money.

You don’t often hear booing at a Pogues gig, but there were quite a few around the auditorium this time around.

Now I have seen this band perform on probably more occasions than I care to admit and part of the attraction is to expect the unexpected.

When the unexpected is a less-than-full-on show, then there is a certain irony involved.

Apart from the lateness, there was something missing throughout this gig to give it that usual Pogues push.

Shane MacGowan wasn’t his usual frontman self, and even Spider didn’t seem to deliver in his usual way.

That said, I still did enjoy the gig. Perhaps I have been spoilt from admiring the Pogues from their glory days.

Of course, Fairytale of New York was left until the end and, it has to be said, this is where the party really started. But ended!

Everyone has their off-nights, but this one was a collective off-night. More’s the pity, for it was my one big Christmas night out of the year! What shall I do next Christmastime? Oh, if the Pogues are back, yes, I’ll probably be drawn back to their show again – it can only get better!


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And one more:

Review: The Pogues at Newcastle 02 Academy

Dec 16 2010
Matt McKenzie
The Journal

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IT only snowed a little on stage this year, presumably God had used it all up outside. But no matter, the flutter from the rafters heralded the arrival of the divinely-inspired festive favourite, Fairytale of New York.

As magical as when first written, played live it must contend with a well-oiled Pogues crowd intent on screaming each wonderful word back at the stage. Not necessarily a bad thing.

This annual reunion is always a raucous affair, branded this time around as a farewell tour (although when your guitarist suggests this is a marketing ploy in September, you doubt they’ll be gone for long).

While the 2010 version was not vintage, it was nonetheless a furious dash through some of modern music’s finest moments made all the more frenetic due to a late start, prompting some very unrock ‘n’ roll apologies.

I believe Shane MacGowan talked of a curfew but that may be wrong, given the first spoken words I understood all night came 45 minutes in and were: “Dirty Old Town”. Sing-a-long-a Pogues, it was wistful, wonderful.

Not that we were here for banter. Rather songs like the uproarious Streams of Whiskey. Occasionally close to adult panto (Shane holds pint of vodka, Shane has an illicit smoke), this knees-up at least gives this shambling man’s exquisite songwriting an annual airing.

Sally MacLennane, A Pair of Brown Eyes, the Shane-free Tuesday Morning and Thousands are Sailing were all here. And then there was Rainy Night in Soho, a song we could all dream of writing. If this year was less than vintage, this was still a full-bodied bona fide bottle of beauty.

Many people think of Fairytale of New York when they conjure The Pogues, but this song will linger longest in the canon. Their finest moment, a work of deft, self-aware lyricism from a man so indulged on abandonment. Really, truly great.


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