POGUES at WILTERN - 18-20 Oct 2006

**Sat Oct 28, 2006 2:35 am**

Happened to be in LA for work last Wednesday and saw that the Pogues were playing at the Wiltern that night. Thought about seeing them, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to go through the effort of figuring out how to get tickets if Shane wasn't singing with them. When I was done with work around 4 pm, I started doing a little digging on the internet, found out that Shane was included and got the details on the gig. Bought a ticket a couple of hours before the show and then hung out in a Korean bar until about 10 minutes before the Pogues came on.

I was somewhat skeptical about what the band would sound like. I had only seen them live once before, in the Washington DC area back in 1989 or so. I think the band might have been promoting Peace and Love. Mojo Nixon and/or the Violent Femmes opened for them. Or maybe it was the other way around. Back then I was listening to them nonstop and was really excited about seeing them. They were preforming at an outdoor amphitheatre in the suburbs, perhaps not the greatest venue for them. The band came on the stage and it was immediately apparent that Shane was incapable of performing. After a short period of time, Shane sat down on the stage and stopped singing. He then left the stage and never returned. Good for a story, but not much of a performance.

Although I never grew tired of the band's music, I somehow never managed to buy any Pogues albums on cd. So a few years after that concert, after I finally made the switch from audio cassettes to cds (my car no longer had a cassette player, etc.), I pretty much stopped listening to them. There was a few years in the early 1990s when I would listen to Shane's duet with Sinead (along with Neil Young's "Down to the Wire") when I was hanging out in my apartment with a good buzz on. And I used to sing "Muirshen Durken" to my wife whenever our friend Matthew Durken came up in conversation. But, otherwise, I only heard the Pogues when my buddy's Irish band did their cover of "If I should Fall from the Grace of God."

So there I was on Wednesday down in the pit, wondering what to expect. Out of the speakers comes a little bit of the Clash and then out comes the band. My first reaction is, god almighty these guys have aged. Hell, three of them have shaved their heads and Shane looked heavy. I was struck how much their appearances had changed, and, of course, thought how much my appearance must have changed as well. It is a long way from 20 to 40. I soon was feeling a strange kind of nostalgia, like the feeling I got visiting the Elementary School I attended and coming across a knee-high water fountain that I struggled to reach when I was 6. Or seeing an old girlfriend for the first time in 20 years. And although I couldn't quite get my head around exactly what I was feeling, I think it was basically that "shit, much of my life has passed" feeling. In any event, I had no fear that the years would take a toll on the band's ability to rock and roll. Anyone who has seen performers like Ray Charles or Doc Watson know that age doesn't always rob a musician of his skills or his soul. And while time alone doesn't always rob a musician, time and alcohol almost always does. So I did have my fears that Shane would be stink up the joint.

Then the band begins and it is immediately apparent that they won't dissapoint. Immediately I hear James Fearnley, who I always thought (right or wrong) was the glue, kicking ass (and moving around as he did back in 1989). And then within seconds, Shane starts with what I could only presume was "Last Night as I Slept, I Dream I met with Behan." Immediately a switch went off in my head. There's THE VOICE. There was the sound that caused me to play the Pogues over and over again on my cassette player.

A friend of mine used to imagine, based on the sound of Shane's voice alone, that the band got its start as follows: Some iteration of the band had been performing for several years on the London pub circuit with a decent but pedestrian singer, then one night Shane in a drunken stupor barrels onto the stage, tells the singer to shut the fuck up, and starts in on some classic Irish revolutionary song, some tear jerker about James Connolly or something like that. From that point on, the old singer knows that he can no longer front the band and Shane becomes the band's lead singer without any discussion. Of course, it didn't happen quite that way, but the story kind of gets at the heart of Shane's street credentials. And it all comes from the Voice. Even his lyrics, as good as they are, wouldn't have the impact without the voice. If you want great Irish music, you can listen to the Pogues, but you can also listen to Dubliners or Planxty or a few other groups, but Shane's voice gives you something more.

So I am in the front pit listening to the voice and the band. The six Jack and sodas I had that evening are catching up to me by this point. And I can't stop the rush of feeling. By the time the voice is belting out the slow stuff that has always resonated with me most--Pair of Brown Eyes, Old Main Drag, Lullaby of London, Dirty Old Town--it's building to something I can't contain. Part giddy, part melancholy, part sad, I definitely went to a place I hadn't been in a while. Between the drinks, the emotions and the small amount of moshing I got sucked into, I really ended up with just a few images that stuck--Spider banging his head with a tray and doing the same tin whistle banging against the leg that I saw in 1989, James crouching and moving, a cool starry night that definitely added to whatever song was going on at the moment, Shane's shit-eating grin, confetti and a girl in a 40s outfit and hair-do singing and dancing with Shane. And throughout the whole evening, the band was tight and the voice was true to what made it great. Awesome night.

Thanks to Philip and the rest of the band.

**Sat Oct 28, 2006 3:04 am**

Nice. Very nicely put. You should register. Sound as a bell, with stuff like that pouring out of ye...

**Sun Oct 29, 2006 1:29 am**

I took these photos at the first Wiltern show; I hope you enjoy them. The concert was amazing and I'd like to thank the band for being so friendly afterwards in signing my program.... You'll never find a nicer bunch of fellows.

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**Mon Oct 30, 2006 3:28 am**

nice pictures!! I took a bunch on the 20th but none came out as good as yours!! haha oh well

**Mon Oct 30, 2006 11:32 pm**

Tim Grierson at thesimon.com:

The Pogues, live at the Wiltern (Wednesday and Thursday, Oct. 18 and 19)

Invited by a friend who loves the band so much he named his son Shane, I had to catch up fast – I bought Rum Sodomy and the Lash and If I Should Fall from Grace With God right quick and force-fed them into my ear to prepare for these shows. The Irish punk band that could sound corny on record – that wavered too closely to the terrible Irish drinking bands that followed in their wake – were nowhere on stage. Instead, imagine the people who populate what Donald Rumsfeld brusquely called "Old Europe": weathered, warm, snarling, hard, manly men who weren’t ashamed to dance. And once they appeared in the flesh, then so too did the songs – the hooks I recognized, but now the tunes felt fuller, more experienced. Shane MacGowan isn’t my idea of a tragic hero, but I was easily outnumbered in that estimation by an adoring crowd who love him as much as they love the rest of these tough old bastards. As I was driving home, I figured out what made the songs so much stronger in person – it was because there were thousands of people singing along.

**Tue Oct 31, 2006 2:31 am**

Thanks, Fintan, for convincing me to register. Now I surely will get nothing done at work and the poor kids will be parked in front of the boob tube all night sipping slurpees while Daddy relives the old days!!

**Tue Oct 31, 2006 3:21 am**

Icky Baldock wrote:Thanks, Fintan, for convincing me to register. Now I surely will get nothing done at work and the poor kids will be parked in front of the boob tube all night sipping slurpees while Daddy relives the old days!!

That'd be right. Blame ME for your appalling lack of Judaeo-Christian work ethic, and attendant drop in productivity. YAY! I strike at the heart of the Crapitalist Junta again!
We have scored another crewmate here on the Raft of The Damned. Yaaarrrrrrr and avast! :wink:

**Sat Nov 04, 2006 5:20 am**

Chaitscasey wrote:nice pictures!! I took a bunch on the 20th but none came out as good as yours!! haha oh well

Thanks for your comment! I hope it's all right if I post a few more photos; it's great to have the opportunity on this board to share them with actual Pogues fans. There really aren't any where I live.

From Oct. 19th:

**Sat Nov 04, 2006 5:45 am**

Great shots, strummercalling! Spider looks like he someone's ear in his mouth and Maestro Fearnley falls to the floor in a paroxysm of post-orchestral lassitude. Nice one/s. Thank you.

**Thu Nov 09, 2006 4:53 am**

Fintan wrote:Great shots, strummercalling! Spider looks like he someone's ear in his mouth and Maestro Fearnley falls to the floor in a paroxysm of post-orchestral lassitude. Nice one/s. Thank you.

Thank you! And your commentary is most impressive.

I guess 'Fiesta' really affords the most photo opportunities of almost any song. It's just great to be able to share them!

**Fri Dec 15, 2006 6:39 am**

Does any one have the setlist for the 1st. show at the wiltern theatre? Wed. Oct. 18th.

**Fri Dec 15, 2006 7:03 am**

I believe it was the same one as in San Francisco.

**Thu Jan 11, 2007 11:00 am**

"THE POGUES" Live at "The Wiltern" Los Angeles, October 18th thru 20th 2006.
Four Galleries of photos by Sean Fay

**Thu Feb 01, 2007 10:54 am**

More of Wiltern, 18&19 Oct 2006

POGUES at WILTERN - 18-20 Oct 2006

Wednesday at the Wiltern

Wiltern Wednesday 18th photos

Just another short review

Setlist for 1st. La Wiltern Show?

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