All hail the return of the Irish Rovers.
by Neil Ferguson
March 8, 2006
Philadelphia Weekly
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"I tend not to look back, y'know? What's done is done."
You might be forgiven for thinking Terry Woods-the Pogues' multi-instrumentalist virtuoso-would have more than his fair share of regrets.
Principally, the fact that the Pogues-who burst onto the U.K.'s moribund mid-'80s music scene with such passion, promise and swagger-should have ended the way they did: with self-destructive frontman Shane MacGowan, lost in a sea of sake and self-loathing, fired after a particularly fraught Japanese tour back in '91, the band stumbling to increasing commercial and critical indifference, dwindling away, tired, listless and neutered in the mid-'90s.
They're certainly one of the last bands you'd bet on making any kind of comeback, particularly in light of the catalog of disasters that have publicly dogged MacGowan over the last decade. Constant rumors of his impending demise, alcoholism, deaths, relationship breakdowns and the inglorious spectacle of erstwhile friend Sinéad O'Connor shopping him to the tabloid press thanks to his heroin abuse.
And yet come back they did, with a week of U.K. X-mas shows five years ago leading them to continue as a sporadic but still undeniably brilliant live touring band. Bearing in mind MacGowan's public distaste for life on the road back in the bad old days, it can't have been easy to convince him to rejoin the fold.
"Oh no," says Woods without hesitation. "He was up for it. I'd actually stopped playing for a while, and it was Shane who talked me back into playing again."
Woods does, however, admit to initial reservations. "We weren't sure if it would be good, bad or indifferent, but it all just fell together. It hasn't lost any of its punch and power, which is a great thing. 'Cause if it did, I don't think we could do it. The band had ended rather strangely, y'know? And in all honesty, the band deserved to end better than it did, just petering out. And it seemed a logical thing for us to get back together for, if nothing else, to give the band a proper ending."
And why not indeed? Their U.K. gigs have been seen as successes, reminding those who'd forgotten just what a potent prospect the Pogues are and were live, and more important, what a king-hell songwriter Shane MacGowan is.
His body of work-at his best, from "A Pair of Brown Eyes," "If I Should Fall From Grace With God," to the greatest X-mas No. 1 that never was, "Fairytale of New York"-remains unparalleled for lyricism, gutter romance and splenetic fury. Or as the man himself has put it, "Songs about fighting, fucking and drinking. The important things."
This gloriously frenetic, hectic, garrulous gobshite of a man soaked up the influence of Behan, Donleavy and O'Brien, mixed it up with sulphate and spirits, added the whiplash fury of the Pistols and the Clash, to present poignant and hilarious portrayals of London Irish life and tales of the diaspora.
"Traditional" Irish folk didn't know what hit it, and the music and lyrics were a fantastic two-finger salute to an England that still harbored suspicion and resentment of the Irish, viewing them as drunken-Paddy white-trash terrorists.
The Pogues helped alter that view, all the while standing on the edges, completely at odds with the fashionistas, pop whores and dour Northern miserabilists that dominated the scene.
They were perpetual outsiders, and it's a reputation that Terry Woods is still proud of. "The great thing about the Pogues was we were never, ever in fashion, we never fitted in and we didn't give a damn. And we still don't."
Pogues
Sat., March 11, 7:30pm. Sold out. Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, 1 Borgata Way, Atlantic City, N.J. 800.736.1420. http://www.theborgata.com
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©2006 Review Publishing
Have a HUUUUUGE time at the shows all!
Maybe condom is not the best symbol of fucking but the most neutral, that's for sure. What should cartoonist have portrayed instead ? 
