Live Review: The Pogues at the Fenix, Seattle [10/17/2007]

The first Pogues song I ever heard was "The Old Main Drag" when I was 12; I was immediately hooked on the crass, vivid imagery of the seedy streets of London. While my interest level has waxed and waned over the years, they have always been close to my heart, and Rum, Sodomy and the Lash has remained on my top 10 albums of all time. I have seen Shane MacGowan play with the Popes on multiple occasions, but I had never gotten to see the Pogues live until this last Wednesday night, October 17th, at the Fenix in Seattle. I am not usually one to shell out 60$ for a ticket, let alone take a day off work and drive 3 hours there and 3 hours back, but I felt my fandom of the Pogues was worthy of the effort.

The set list was great -- they catered to the loyal, opening with a raucous "Streams of Whiskey", and playing some of their lesser-known songs like "Kitty", "The Body of an American" and "Star of the County Down". I was bummed that they didn't play "The Old Main Drag", but my disappointment was appeased by "Sickbed of Cuchulainn" and "A Pair of Brown Eyes." The room sounded really good, with an excellent stage and a great crowd.

However, taking my adoring-fan-colored glasses off for a second, while the band was tight as hell, Shane MacGowan was a mess. Some years ago, he broke his nose when he fell off a bar stool and hit his face on the bar, and his singing has just not been the same; rather than being charmingly slurred, it's all nasally and downright unintelligible. He was drunk as per usual, but also out of breath and missed parts regularly. As a Pogues fan, I am willing to accept this as just Shane being Shane, but as someone who paid 60$ for a ticket and drove 6 hours, I felt like it was a marginal performance at best. I felt sorry for the band because they sounded great and it was obvious that they had prepared well for the tour. I can only imagine the frustrations of Spider Stacy and the rest of the Pogues at having to re-enact "Weekend at Bernie's" with Shane night after night.

[Photos By Mandy Becker]