Live review: The Pogues at Newcastle City Hall

Such was its quality that it was always going to for as long as records, CDs, streaming services and radio stations exist, but hearing it performed live by some of his original bandmates in a venue they’ve played at with him in the past, such as Newcastle City Hall last night, May 8, is a different kettle of fish all together.

It’s a joy to behold and, being a straightforward celebration of part of the London folk-punk act’s all-too-brief recording career – six years with Kent-born MacGowan and another five after they sacked him in 1991 – it comes with none of the baggage or tribute-act accusations that have dogged, say, the Sex Pistols’ reunion with Frank Carter as singer.

Seeing hundreds of mostly men in a certain age jumping up and down with as much of the enthusiastic abandon they would have exhibited back in the 1980s as the passage of time permits is affirmation, were it needed, of the enduring appeal of the Pogues’ second album – Rum, Sodomy and the Lash, a No 13 hit back in 1985 – and remaining original members Spider Stacy, James Fearnley and Jem Finer’s decision not to let its 40th anniversary go unmarked.

Seeing MacGowan, alive from 1957 to 2023, replaced by Stacy, 66, is nothing new as that’s a role he previously took on from 1992 to 1996 ahead of the Popes frontman’s return in 2001, but having a rotating cast of guest collaborators – South Tynesider Nadine Shah, Darragh Lynch, Lisa O’Neill, John Francis Flynn and Iona Zajac – taking on vocal duties is, having been trialled on a two-show basis last year to mark the four-decade anniversary of their debut album, Red Roses for Me, though not entirely as the last time they played at the city hall, in December 1991, it was with Clash legend Joe Strummer as lead singer.

What was new this time round was much of the crowd being drunker than the band, something that, admittedly, would have required a lot of time, effort and application to pull off with MacGowan, no stranger to the demon drink, on stage.

The current iteration of the Pogues has got to be their slickest yet but not too much so, enough of a shambolic edge surviving to honour their origins but without incomprehensibility ever being an issue, as was sometimes the case back in the day.

2024’s dates were the band’s first since they played at MacGowan’s funeral at Nenagh in County Tipperary in Ireland in December 2023, following his death at the age of 65 the month prior, their last shows with MacGowan having been back in 2014.

Highlights of a 20-plus-song set at Newcastle lasting not too far short of two hours included final encore Sally MacLennane, Shah’s take on A Pair of Brown Eyes, Flynn’s on And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda and a rousing rendition of London Girl with pretty much their entire cast on stage as far as I could see.

Their current tour is also a welcome reminder that – like dogs, pigs-in-blankets and Slade – the Pogues aren’t just for Christmas, though so impressed was Stacy with the welcome given to his reassembled band that he did promise to do it all again, so a further anniversary tour taking in 1987’s A Fairytale of New York might well be on the way.

In the meanwhile, they’ve got one last date of their present tour to go and it’s at Glasgow’s Barrowland this coming Sunday, May 11. Ticlkets, priced £49.50, are sold out but for details of possible returns, go to https://www.gigsandtours.com/tour/the-pogues