I was, I’ll be honest, a tad hesitant before last night’s Pogues concert. On the one hand, Shane MacGowan, the band’s frontman and singer and primary lyricist, has been gone since 2023, and gone from the band since a lot sooner. On the other hand, their breakthrough album Rum, Sodomy & The Lash is now forty years old, and the three remaining Pogues—Spider Stacy, Jem Finer, and James Fearnley—are touring to celebrate one of the truly great records of my youth.
So I drove up through the early stages of Cyclone Vaianu to Auckland’s newest venue, the rather impressive-looking NZICC, very slightly unsure of what to expect. By the time I was driving home, all doubts were gone. This was an exceptional show. It was, more than anything else, fun.
The show, like the album it celebrated, kicked off with The Sick Bed of Cuchulain, and immediately it was obvious that, even if The Pogues are now built around three older men, this was not an old man’s concert. Stacy has been singing, on and off, in MacGowan’s place since the latter departed the band in 1991. And while, let’s be clear, nobody could ever truly replace MacGowan, Stacy has made The Pogues’ songs his own and brings his own ragged punk sensibilities to the band’s classics, as well as the energy and fire of a much younger man.
He’s a strong frontman, to be clear, but RS&tL has some serious range, and so The Pogues, for this tour, have an extended vocal bench, sharing singing duties among a handful of guest signers. Jordan O’Leary, the evening’s second banjo, took the mic for A Pair Of Brown Eyes, while Iona Zajac stepped away from her harp to share I’m A Man You Don’t Meet Every Day with John Francis Flynn. Flynn had been the opening act, and that set was, if we’re being generous, odd. But a voice that sounded like a drone and a dirge during his set—my notes just say “Leonard O’Cohen”—found its place in The Pogues’ music and arrangements, and he and Zajac gelled perfectly. And Lisa O’Neill, looking for all the world like an Irish Olivia Coleman, clearly had a blast performing—not just singing, but really getting into—The Gentleman Soldier alongside Stacy. And special mention must be made of Holly Mullineaux. It’s not just that it was great to see a female bassist play Cait O’Riordan’s parts—she put every ounce of O’Riordan’s fire into the opening to Wild Cats of Kilkenny—but she also matched every one of O’Riordan’s howls in the track too.
So yes, I left the show glad I’d gone. Stacy, Finer, and Fearnley have made a very, very smart move in assembling a young and very talented band around them. While Finer has aged gracefully and steps back into the wings a fair bit, Stacy still has the punk energy in him that drove Rum, Sodomy & the Lash all those years ago, and Fearnley clearly loves still what he does every night, an accordion hero a rare thing but a role he fills gloriously. Put simply, this was a joyous show, performed by a trio of musicians who know they had a hand in creating something very, very special, and supported by a very talented backing band.
I do have a complaint, mind. The show was badged as celebrating 40 years of the album that made The Pogues the stars they deserved to be. But it showcased that record to the exclusion of much that came before and after. A Rainy Night In Soho got an outing, despite not appearing on the album and—let’s be clear here—being among The Pogues’ weakest songs, the closest MacGowan came to easy listening. A much better song is The Body of an American, which also was released on the Poguetry In Motion EP that followed RS&tL, but that, apparently, is where things ended. The band released If I Should Fall From Grace With God a couple of years later, by far their masterpiece, a truly magnificent set that, while it possibly lacked the punk edge of its predecessor, will remain their finest hour. But we didn’t hear a single song from it last night, and so I’m simply left hoping that, in a few years’ time, The Pogues will come back to Auckland and celebrate that record too.
And if they do, I don’t care what the weather’s like. If they’re half as good next time as they were last night, I’ll definitely be back.
