Telegraph, 22/12/2005
Sam Leith reviews the Pogues at Brixton Academy
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The purpose of the Pogues, as I see it, is to make you feel as if you're in the best pub lock-in in the history of the world, with the role of the Irish drunk shouting unintelligibly at strangers taken by Shane MacGowan.
They've been doing this since 1982, on and off, when not chucking their singer out of a moving tour van. They still do it bloody well.
When they take the stage at the Brixton Academy, they open with Streams of Whiskey, and a crowd of old-time fans - one bearing an enormous superglued '80s mohican; another hoisting an infant daughter on his shoulders - bounces and chants along from the get-go.
My friend James Walton, Pogues scholar and TV critic of this newspaper, has a theory about the band. He reckons the secret of their success is that they are an extremely tight and professional band, fronted by a charismatic shambles.
During the roughly one song in three that Shane spends offstage - he shares vocal duties with Terry Woods - the band is as propulsive and energetic as ever. Shane, by the way, is in fine voice: you can't make out a word he is saying. "Suicidal streak," he seems to be growling at one point, in a manner that does not invite you to doubt his sincerity. "Sunny side of the street" is what he's actually singing.
The whole experience is utterly uplifting. How odd that, before the Pogues, it didn't occur to anyone that foot-stomping Irish folk music would go with punk rock like Guinness goes with whiskey. But it does, and their genius is to have discovered it.
The set starts strong and gets stronger, with little let-up and the barest minimum of chat. Lullaby of London skirls and stomps. Ned of the Hill - they still haven't forgiven Cromwell - snarls. The ragged grandeur of Dirty Old Town has the crowd swaying and singing along.
But, inevitably, it's Fairytale of New York, in the second encore, that we're all waiting for. It doesn't disappoint. Ella Finer - the daughter of the band's guitarist and banjo player Jem - takes the Kirsty MacColl part, bringing a real sweetness to her half of the duet.
Strangers are giving each other hugs in the mosh pit. Our TV critic staggers out wearing a Santa hat donated, somewhat forcefully, by a female passer-by. Shane embraces Ella, and a blizzard of artificial snow covers the front of the stage. It's cheesy as hell. It's lovely. Last orders are still a long way off.
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