Venue: ŠRC Šalata / Zagreb / Croatia
Concert date: 13.07.2011
Attendance: 7000
Ticket price: 31.23 EUR
Right on cue, the first heat wave of the year brought a The Pogues show with it. Nothing special, you might say at first glance, but for us fans of good old booze-soaked folk punk, played by these outstanding English musicians with Irish roots, this was one hell of a holiday. As sworn lovers of everything that leans green (except for what’s in the glasses), we were a little bummed on the other hand, because this gig cost us an important European match for Olimpija, who were playing in the Europa League qualifiers against – what a coincidence – Bohemian F.C. from Dublin.
So the four of us steered into Zagreb a couple of hours before the show. At Šalata, where there’s also an inline hockey rink that served as the stage and has room for 6 – 7000 thirsty, party-hungry souls, the fans had been gathering since early afternoon. Most of them were cooling off in the shade with hectoliters of beer, and plenty were parading around the whole of Šalata park decked out in Irish colors, meaning green clothes and even Scottish kilts, with the mandatory ‘coolant’ in hand. We even ran into a group merrily blasting away on Scottish bagpipes.
The Pogues basically come out of the London punk scene of the mid-seventies. Frontman, vocalist and the band’s big star Shane MacGowan especially was one of the familiar faces of the London punk scene back then. There’s the famous shocking scene from a The Clash gig, for example, where one of the girls cut off his earlobe with a smashed bottle. The picture of his bloodied ear went around all the media and marks his first appearance in the public eye. His first band The Nipple Erectors, which already featured a few future Pogues members, was already hinting at the first signs of a musical direction that grew out of punk into folk country rock’n’roll, drawing its inspiration from Irish musical tradition.
The Pogues today, after Shane MacGowan rejoined the ranks in 2001, are strumming away as James Fearnley (accordion), Peter ‘Spider’ Stacy (tin whistle, vocals), Jem Finer (banjo, guitar, vocals), Philip Chevron (guitar, vocals), Terry Woods (zither, guitar, vocals), Andrew Ranken (drums, percussion, vocals) and Darryl Hunt (bass guitar). With that lineup they kicked off the party, half an hour late, with rivers of whiskey (Streams of Whiskey), which quickly turned into rivers of sweat down in front of the stage, since pretty much everyone there got literally swept up into general revelry and merrymaking. You can see that Shane has been worn down quite a bit by all those years of heavy drinking. He comes out on stage in dark glasses and stays in the shadows, unlit. His trademark gear is still a lit cig in his hand and a stand with a drink next to the mic. But the voice, which remains his signature, is still the same, and so are the arm movements while he sings, which sometimes recall Joe Cocker’s interpretations. Shane didn’t let us down this time and didn’t get carted off early. He took a few songs off to rest and Spider took over lead vocals, but despite a few breaks Shane pulled his job off brilliantly to the very end.
All the members of the band, regardless of age, look surprisingly fresh. Maybe you really can’t expect any wild running around on stage anymore, but fifty-seven-year-old James Fearnley, for example, still glides across the whole length of the stage on his knees with the accordion in his lap. With only a couple of ballads, like And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda or A Pair of Brown Eyes, the Pogues managed, with their Best Of selection (we only missed Fairytale of New York and Summer in Siam), to thoroughly wear out the crowd, who kept jumping, moshing and flinging full plastic cups of beer into the air non-stop. The crowd sang along on most of the songs, and Dirty Old Town was really the first true high point of the night. The musicians on stage are simply excellent, and the sheer variety of instruments gives a really full sound.
The first encore had three songs. Sally MacLennane, A Rainy Night in Soho and of course the famous Irish Rover, the second high point of the night, which threw even the last holdouts who’d been hanging back into the general revelry. There was no standing still anymore, the whirlwind of merrymaking left nobody indifferent. And it certainly didn’t leave us indifferent, because in the moments before the second encore we got word from Ljubljana that we’d beaten Bohemians 2:0. Poor Paddy on the Railway and of course Fiesta were the perfect finish to a truly one-of-a-kind night.
To wrap up, Shane thanks us with the words ‘Thank you fuckin’ very much’, bangs on the cymbals a couple of times, and tears into Spider too, who uncompromisingly grabs a guitar and smashes it mercilessly. So the party was irrevocably over, but our ears were left ringing with almost folk-classic Irish tunes, and we went home with sweaty bodies and satisfied souls. Few know how to give a crowd so much with so little effort. The Pogues are the one and only, one of a kind and inimitable.
Setlist
1. Streams of Whiskey
2. If I Should Fall From Grace With God
3. The Broad Majestic Shannon
4. Boat Train
5. A Pair of Brown Eyes
6. Tuesday Morning
7. Irish Lullaby
8. Sunny Side of The Street
9. And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda
10. Body of an American
11. London Girl
12. Thousands Are Sailing
13. Dirty Old Town
14. Bottle of Smoke
15. The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn
—————
First encore:
16. Sally MacLennane
17. A Rainy Night In Soho
18. Irish Rover
————–
Second encore:
19. Poor Paddy on the Railway
20. Fiesta
Photo Gallery
