“It’s a real effing pleasure to be here,” Spider Stacy hollers before The Pogues have even fully emerged on-stage, crammed across two-tiers and multiple risers as they struggle to fit a double-figure ensemble over the limited space. The Eastbourne-raised singer-songwriter has just a touch of the brogue to his voice, the kind of tone that inevitably draws a focal fascination towards the gulf on his right. “Leeds,” he continues, “you’ve got to tear us apart.”
More than four decades since they formed in King’s Cross, the Anglo-Irish veterans – Stacy, plus multi-instrumentalists James Fearnley and Jem Finer – have returned in earnest, tracking off the back of a handful of shows last year to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of sophomore album and arguable masterpiece Rum Sodomy & the Lash. This tour kick-off in West Yorkshire finds them on rambunctious form, even as they work hard to overcome the spectre at the feast.
Idiosyncratic frontman Shane MacGowan spent more time out of the band than he was ever in it, but their identity remains intertwined with the late star, who passed away after a prolonged battle with ill health at the end of 2023. Plenty of questions lingered upon the announcement of these dates over just how the group would seek to compensate for his absence, despite Stacy’s own proficient talents as a hard-bitten folk voice himself.
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The answer is that The Pogues never try to fill his shoes with one voice. A rotating cast of guest stars join the trio and their extended touring hands – predominantly middle-aged and masculine, undercut by the brown-suited Holly Mullineaux on bass – to rustle through the record taken out of sequence and a handful of other cuts. It is a tactic that pays dividends; even with a sound mix that occasionally strains to contain all the elements in play, it taps into a keen emotional tenor.
Alternative favourite Nadine Shah offers superb texture and dimension to plenty of old favourites like I’m a Man You Don’t Meet Every Day, while Irish veteran John Francis Flynn puts the power behind And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda, both outstanding highlights. But these songs still transcend plenty too; Dirty Old Town and A Rainy Night in Soho, the latter captured as a final eulogy for MacGowan by Bruce Springsteen last year, are practically drowned out by the lusty singalong from the crowd. “Too right,” Stacy chuckles afterwards.
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