THE Pogues have paid tribute to Shane MacGowan and said the late singer lives on through guest performers singing his tunes.
The trad heroes will tour their legendary album Rum, Sodomy & The Lash for its 40th anniversary next year, featuring a number of stars filling in for Shane.
The Tipperary rocker passed away last year after a brave battle with ill health aged 65, but his former bandmates believe his spirit is irreplaceable.
The Pogues recently toured for the anniversary of their debut album Red Roses For Me with a series of UK shows earlier this year, and play the 3Arena in Dublin next month.
Banjo player Jem Finer admitted MacGowan was “irreplaceable” but said his essence had been “flowing through” guest singers in recent concerts.
Speaking about his influence on their return, the 69-year-old, who co-wrote the band’s Christmas number two Fairytale Of New York, revealed: “A lot of the music he wrote, and most of it he sang, even if he didn’t write it.
“He’s an irreplaceable person, but somehow his spirit lives on in these people, in working with these other singers, it’s kind of like flowing through them, so he’s very much there, very celebratory and beautifully respectful.
“It’s a spiritual thing without being contrived at all, which if it hadn’t worked like that, we wouldn’t be doing this amazing thing that blossomed into one concert and another and has led to that uncontrivable thing.”
One final performance of the first record is planned for Dublin next month with the help of guests including Fontaines DC’s Grian Chatten and singer Nadine Shah, before the band prepare to take on the second album.
Speaking about reuniting for the special gigs, vocalist and tin whistle player Spider Stacy said their reunion was only ever meant to be a short-term thing.
The 65-year-old said special guests for next year’s shows were yet to be decided and explained that they “suggest themselves almost”.
Stacy continued: “It was only ever meant to be a little thing (but) became something much, much bigger than it was intended to be.
“Well, it started when, back in May, we did a show at Hackney Empire in London, 40 years of Red Roses For Me, and it very quickly became apparent that we were going to have to do something to mark 40 years of Rum Sodomy & The Lash, because the Hackney show was so popular and went so well, and hopefully the Dublin show is going to be the same.
“Rum Sodomy & the Lash was kind of always on the cards, this was always going to happen.”
Rum Sodomy & the Lash is one of the Celtic punk band’s most critically acclaimed albums, and features some of the group’s best-known songs such as Dirty Old Town, A Pair Of Brown Eyes and Sally MacLennane.
COVER SYMBOLISM
The album is known for its striking cover, which features the Theodore Gericault painting The Raft of the Medusa, altered to include band members’ faces.
Jem Finer said the painting’s use was the idea of his wife Marcia, who is an art historian and artist, and thought it was “in keeping with The Pogues and the kind of things we sing about”.
When asked how the band look back on the album and its recording, accordion player James Fearnley said: “We look back on it fondly, it was nice to do Red Roses For Me, and then go back to the same studio and do Rum Sodomy & The Lash, and then to find somebody like Elvis Costello in the room to work with.
“It was really exciting to have something familiar in the studio itself, and then for Elvis to be working with us too.
“And then with this bunch of songs, which we’d obviously been rehearsing, we were talking earlier about A Pair Of Brown Eyes, for instance, The Old Main Drag was a great song that had gone back to my first few days rehearsing and getting to know Shane’s songs.”
NEW TOUR
The gigs for their UK and Ireland tour, which will also see the band play the Poguetry in Motion EP that followed the album and features A Rainy Night In Soho, will begin in Leeds on May 1 and finish in Newcastle on May 8.
Tickets for the concerts will go on sale on Friday at 9.30am from Ticketmaster and Gigs and Tours.
