The Pogues made a triumphant return to 02 Apollo Manchester on Wednesday evening with fans cramming into the venue to see Spider Stacey lead a slightly different line up of immensely talented musicians, all of whom took centre stage and were individually introduced by Stacey to rapturous applause.
The infectious Irish music had the audience clapping along from the get go, and no doubt desperate to jig along, which would have been a challenge in the cramped conditions. Four decades have passed since the band formed and introduced their sophomore album ‘Rum, Sodomy & The Lash’ and this tour is to commemorate the iconic noise released to the world all those years ago.
Still as raucous as ever, the line-up was a diverse mix of instruments and general tomfoolery with the band clearly displaying a strong sense of camaraderie throughout the songs. It is of course not quite the Pogues we all grew up with due to the absence of the late Shane McGowan who passed away two years ago.
The band certainly did him proud and the original members are joined on stage by a rotating band, including Nadine Shah whose voice is utterly breathtaking amongst all the chaos onstage. A shout out must also go to the effortlessly cool Holly Mullineaux on bass, adding a little bit of punk to the proceedings.
The highlights of course were classics tracks ‘Dirty Old Town’ which blew the roof off, and really is quite spectacular when listened to live! ‘And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda’ was also a special part of the evening, the crowd becoming more animated as the evening finally drew to a close with a generous five track encore, resulting in a mass sing-a-long when ‘The Irish Rover’ played out.
All in all, a pretty special night of live music, and should you get an opportunity to see this talented collective, then do so! It is infectiously fun, and will leave you smiling for days on end. Long live The Pogues.
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