by Conor Sharkey
The Pogues in a post-Shane MacGowan era – could it work? Would it work?
In front of a jam packed 3Arena the fathers (or should that be grandfathers?) of Irish folk punk answered those two questions with a booming yes and yes.
Spider Stacy, as he did so often when MacGowan was absent or incapable, played the role of organiser, MC and frontman.
Radiating the natural cool that steered The Pogues through many storms, Stacy appeared at times lost for words at the sea of faces before him.
The music did the talking as he and the multitude of artists around him launched head first into the oft-anarchic setlist from the band’s debut album ‘Red Roses for Me.’
The show opened with the raucous, rattling ‘Transmetropolitan’ which had the crowd bouncing from the off.
It was followed by a rendition of ‘The Battle of Brisbane’ before Ian Lynch of Lankum was summonsed from the wings to sing ‘Greenland Whale Fisheries.’ On a night of so many standout moments, Lynch’s performance was right up there as he belted out the nautical tale of doom and death.
The three original Pogues – Stacy on vocals and tin whistle, Jem Finer on banjo and James Fearnley who thrashed his accordion about like it was made of toilet paper – were joined at various points by, among others, members of Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds, Fontaines DC frontman Grian Chatten, the Mary Wallopers and Iona Zajac whose thundering version of ‘Poor Paddy’ may well have caused the Dublin venue structural damage.
Bad Seed Jim Sclavunos’s performance of ‘The Band Played Waltzing Matilda’ was as much Broadway as it was banks of the Liffey as he took the audience deep down into the mud and misery that first inspired Eric Bogle to put pen to paper.
Likewise Nadine Shah’s take on ‘The Auld Triangle’ deserved to be heard right along the Royal Canal, such was her stunning operatic vocal.
Any questions over whether The Pogues should continue now that three of the band’s most famous line-up – Phil Chevron, Darryl Hunt and Shane MacGowan – have passed on were put to bed by Victoria Mary Clarke. She said her late husband would have loved every minute of the night and that it gave her great delight to hear his songs being reimagined by a new generation of artists.
No one was under any illusion about where things were going to end up – with a snow-covered rendition of ‘Fairytale of New York.’ And so it came to pass with Charles Hendy of the Mary Wallopers and Radie Peat of Lankum doing a fine job of recreating the timeless festive favourite.
A fairytale ending to a wild, screaming, joyous night.
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