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I bet most longtime fans (I’m one) were glad to see that, while the sold-out and very subculturally diverse crowd was hell-bent on living up to the most pernicious of Irish stereotypes, the only heartbreaking works of genius staggering took place in the audience, not onstage. Front man Shane MacGowan, who’s been at the top of the Underground Rock Death Pool since G.G. Allin cacked, was not only on point and lucid (though he still needs English subtitles sometimes), he was plump, fluffy-haired, and bright-shirted, looking downright settled into the kind of middle age that can last a comfortably long time before it turns into old age. Far be it from me to attempt platitudinous psychoanalysis from the pit, but maybe singing those songs again reminded him why he ought to take care of himself and stick around a little longer: “GodDAMN, I’m fuckin’ brilliant.”
As for the Pogues’ lasting cultural influence, I refer you to this essay by Bob Geldof, which vividly details the way the band gave real Irish music back to disaffected and cynical Irish kids of the punk generation after decades of twee tourist twaddle that’d had its teeth capped. They did something similar for the kind of Irish-American who lets you hear about it all year long, not just during the unofficial Drunken Oirish Bastard History Month. (Full disclosure: I’m of Irish heritage, but according to the family genealogist, the ancestors emigrated from Cork so long ago they were fleeing Cromwell, not the potato famine or more general crappy prospects. But the very fact the family knows this suggests we are quite susceptible to attacks of fake stepdancing when drunk.) To play one’s own demented-but-beautiful version of a people’s traditional music with fingers cocked in a rude gesture is a brilliant thing no matter what tradition is involved.
