Dirty Old Town

New Year’s resolutions out of the way first:

- I’m going to learn to drive
- I’m going to get fitter and do more races

As everyone well knows, I hate Christmas for a whole myriad of both pious and Scrooge-like reasons I won’t go into, so I’m going to say as little about the whole thing as possible. Before this tedious event, however, I went to see the Pogues at Brixton Academy – oh, my, they were good!! Admittedly, Shane MacGowan should by rights be dead, and at various points throughout I suspected he might be. He now has no teeth, so makes even less sense than he used to, and during the gig he smoked his way through nine cigarettes and half a bottle of whiskey. At the start he was physically led onstage by some sort of minder, who helpfully pointed out the microphone to me. He then greeted us with something I can roughly transcribe as “gyfjhfbfyithsdfuysynouthmdudakjhdfhboigtcevtFUCK”, which apparently made sense to everyone else, who cheered.

Apparently when Shane MacGowan was playing an Oxford Street ghost he was so drunk he couldn’t remember the words to “Fairytale of New York”. I’m not sure if this was the case tonight, as everything was mutually incomprehensible. Regardless, though, he sounded great. They performed an epic two-hour set – far more than any live act I’ve ever seen (sorry, Moz.) They sang every well-known song, from “Dirty Old Town” to “If I Should Fall From Grace With God”, to “Thousands Are Sailing”, which they dedicated to Kirsty MacColl, and the obligatory “Fairytale Of New York”, since the crowd would have lynched them otherwise. The latter was nothing to write home about, complete as it was with balloons and fake snow and a by this time completely hammered Shane MacGowan trying to remember how to waltz with a MacColl stand-in whose dress made her look like Grayson Perry as alter-ego Clare. I have to admit that my impressions of this gig were not helped by the fact that of the two guys I went with, one had inserted earplugs before they’d even come onstage, and the other remained firmly seated throughout while people called Seamus danced around him, undeterred, because there was a sign that said for our safety we should remain in our seats, and he “didn’t want to get into trouble”.

I kept the ticket in case it turned out to be MacGowan’s last gig, so I could flog it on ebay to some Irish sucker who wanted it for posterity, but, against all odds, he’s still not dead. Maybe he’s some sort of time lord who regenerates every now and again to stay something close to alive… Anyway, if you’ve never seen the Pogues live, it’s about time you did.