The Pogues

I was 14 years old when I first heard The Pogues. I’d been taping the chart show on Radio One. It had just ended and Janice Long’s show came on. I was about to take the tape out of the tape recorder when I heard the strains of a song that I recognised.

It was a song called Dirty Old Town written my a folk singer called Ewan MacColl.  I knew this song because my mum was a folky and had dragged our family to folk festivals all over Britain for years. There was something a little bit different about this version however.  It was a little bit rocky and wasn’t sung in the typical finger in the ear folk singer manner I’d heard it sung in before. Needless to say I recorded it.

It was another three years before I heard them again. This time it was at an alternative music club in Liverpool called Planet X. The DJ used to play solid punk and goth music but as the end of the night approached he would find other stuff to play. The Pogues were usually in this catagory and the dancefloor would end up full of punk rockers doing Irish jigs and spinning their partners around in a frenzy.

It was at this point that I decided I loved them enough to buy their albums and being a poor student waited until I had a little bit of cash. I went to Probe Records three weeks on the run and bought their first three albums in reverse order, If I should Fall From Grace With God, Rum Sodomy and The Lash and last of all I got Red Rose For Me. Once I had them, I played them solidly every day for about five years. I learned the words to most of the songs and every band members name and of course I went to see them live whenever and wherever I could afford to.

My favourite album of the three was (and still is) the third album, If I Should Fall From Grace With God. It contains the classic line up and the hit song Fairytale of New York and was produced by Kirsty MacColl’s husband at the time Steve Lillywhite. The other two albums I mentioned contain some absolute classics too and they’re all well worth seeking out and listening too as are the albums that they have done since these three were released.

In 1991, I went to what I thought was my last Pogues gig. I took some friends to see a gig that they were doing at the Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool. I had told them they had to see The Pogues, they were absolutely brilliant live. That was a big mistake, that night they were terrible, Shane didn’t seem interested in performing and kept wandering off leaving the rest of the band looking confused and having to carry on without him. My friends said they would never go and see The Pogues again.

I didn’t go to see them again either for a very long time. I read what they were up to in the music press and longed for a reunion. In 2001 it happened. Then it happened again a few years later and gradually it became a yearly thing for The Pogues to do a UK and Ireland tour around Christmas time with the classic line up, Shane MacGowan (vocals), James Fearnley (accordion), Jem Finer (Banjo), Daryl Hunt (Bass), Terry Woods (mandolin/cittern etc), Spider Stacy (tin whistle), Andrew Ranken (drums) and the late Philip Chevron (guitar). It was fabulous.

In 2005 I enrolled on the forum on The Pogues official website. Philip Chevron was a regular poster on there and for ages I didn’t realise that it actually was him, I thought it was an imposter. It was when he posted something personal that I realised it was him. Through him I managed to get aftershow passes several times and meet him and most of the other band members, the first time was in December 2006 at the MEN Arena in Manchester. Philip Chevron had dedicated Thousands Are Sailing to me that night which had surprised me so much that I had cried.

About six months later Philip developed throat cancer. He did recover and I met him again but eventually he got a secondary cancer and died on 8th October 2013 aged 56. Philip did a lot for the fans, me included and a separate blog will be written about him at a future date. The photograph above is the only photograph I have of Philip and myself together and I cherish it.

I always enjoy going to see The Pogues play. There have been good gigs and there have been bad but I have remained dedicated throughout.

I have loads of memories, an embarrasing wino on the bus when we went to the 2009 gig at the Echo Arena in Liverpool who said he had performed with The Pogues at the Empire Theatre (obviously this was a myth because the band have never performed there). He was drinking alcohol and flouting the smoking ban. Then there was a gig back in the day when Shane dedicated Bottle of Smoke to the girl on the front row who, he said ‘looks like she needs one’. That girl was me because I looked round and I was the only girl on the front row. I confess I only remembered that one when I read an old diary entry. These are only a few of the memories, I could go on but you would probably get bored.

The Pogues were the first band to do what the style of music they do. They are the original and the best. There are lots of bands who have been influenced by them and do similar stuff but nobody can ever quite compare to them. If I’m listening to music, I always prefer to pick out one of there albums as opposed to The Tossers, Flogging Molly, Blaggards or Biblecode Sundays.

The last time I saw them perform live was at the Manchester Apollo in December 2013. James Walbourne took over from Philip on the guitar. It was the Rum, Sodomy and The Lash tour and they were playing the full album in its entireity as well as some of the old favourites they would normally do. It was a good gig and James Walbourne did brilliantly but Philip was missed.

They did a few gigs last summer but so far this year it doesn’t look like anything is planned. I hope they do perform again even if it’s just a short tour before Christmas but I know they’re getting older and may not want to in quite the way that they used to. Anyway I’ll keep my fingers crossed.