Skip to main contentThe 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!”
The Pogues play the Roseland Theater on Sunday, Oct. 11, with Swingin' Utters. 9 pm. Sold out. 21+.
WWeek 2015
