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The Pogues never should’ve existed. Not in 1982, not forcing tin whistle and accordion on the pogo-ing faithful. And it seems faintly miraculous the famed Celtic punk outfit’s core members stayed together for nine years and five albums. Late-to-the-party devotees (the Pogues, all spit and sentimentality, have never been a young man’s band) flocked to increasingly dissipated performances by former vocalist Shane MacGowan and gave spin to his bandmates’ museless vamps. The ever-growing cult of the Pogues traded out-of-print albums and rumors of bootlegs and thought not at all about the chances the band would get back together: Odds of the Pogues playing Portland ranked somewhere between a reunited Beatles and Irish rapprochement. But with the impossible now just days away, founding member Spider Stacy talked with WW about the group’s four-years-long-and-counting comeback tour, the lapsed investigation surrounding the death of Kirsty MacColl (female vocalist on beloved Christmas anthem “Fairytale of New York”) and the post-Shane Pogues’ unremembered visit (“you don’t have a monorail, do you?”) to Portland 14 years ago.
“Our audiences are all pretty much the same wherever we go. They’re really sort of up for it, and have a good time. Between, let’s say, a Boston crowd and a Los Angeles crowd, there’s not really an awful lot of difference. Generally speaking, Pogues fans are Pogues fans the world over...and they’re wild in the sack!”
SEE IT: The Pogues play the Roseland Theater on Sunday, Oct. 11, with Swingin’ Utters. 9 pm. Sold out. 21+.
