I was lucky enough to hook up with a bunch of friends to see the Pogues play Roseland on St. Patty’s day! I skipped out of work a bit early, caught the train in to Penn, took the C up two stops to 50th St. and hiked up the two blocks to 52nd street. Tim was already in with Sport and Cate who had gone in early for the parade and were just getting the kids and grandparents back on a train out east when I arrived, so I just hung out on line and talked to some cool people from New Brunswick about bands we liked until they could get down to meet me.

Cate produced one of Cathy’s bottles of Atholl brose which was enough to get me out of conversation with my new found friends and a couple blocks away to a park where we could sip it in peace out of some McDonalds cups. Dirtbag tip: paper McDonalds cups make you look a lot less like a dreg than a brown paper bag, but will cost you a quarter each. It was only a small bottle, so we hiked back uptown to a nice bar on 54th for a couple pints. While mulling around I got into conversation with a couple of guys with foreign accents. It was so loud I couldn’t tell if they were speaking German or Dutch, so I offered some help to their questions in German. We had some stunted German conversation back and forth for a little bit until we all realized (to mutual amusement) that they were English! When I asked why not just fly over to Ireland for St. Patty’s, they said it’s a lot more fun in NYC, and a lot cheaper. This underscores the realities of our new economic situation - which is basically, dismal.

The band that opened for the Pogues were from Los Angeles, but I didn’t catch their name. I didn’t know what to expect from these guys, but was impressed when the 12 or so mostly Mexicano bandmembers starting playing Klezmer music! WTF? They were a good party band, and did a bunch of great toe-taping tunes in Spanish. They did one Irish sounding song which they dedicated to the San Patricios celebrating the “several hundred Irish, Germans, Swiss, Scots and other Roman Catholics of European descent, who deserted the U.S. Army and fought as part of the Mexican Army against the United States in the Mexican-American War of 1846 to 1848″. In traditional American schoolbooks, written mostly by protestants, these guys were just traitors but apparently from what I read they are folk heros to the mostly Catholic Mexicans.

I was going to write up a lengthy review of the show (for which I did NOT write down a set list other than they opened with Streams of Whiskey, played just about every Pogues song I know - including Greenland Whale Fisheries which I sang along to - and ended with Fairytale of NY) but I found this review from last year is just about my experience, except that we didn’t have the benefit of VIP tickets and stuck it out on the floor.

The music was awesome - that was the catch phrase for the night. It implies that Shane MacGowan wasn’t, necessarily. Yeah, he’s the voice of the Pogues, but that voice was largely absent last night - in his totally pissed state he was near worthless as a performer. He’s been thrown out of the Pogues before for similar behavior so it’s nothing new. Dropping the mic stand (and the mic) several times (once into the crowd, though they were nice enough to pass it back up to him), he mumbled nonsensical ramblings inbetween songs while his poor bandmates could merely carry on and roll their eyes. Spider Stacy, the skinny tin whistle player and singer who carried the ball for a couple Pogues albums himself some years ago seemed visibly annoyed by Shane’s antics. That said, it was amazing how Shane actually did remember most of the words to the songs, though in truth you couldn’t really make them out too well. I couldn’t help but draw parallels to Ozzy. At only 51 years old, Shane looks like he’s well into his 60s to me, though perhaps it was his drunken shambling about that gave me that impression. During his palsied waltz with the guest singer (?) at the end of Fairytale of NY, I kept wondering if he would trip and fall off the stage with her or if he’d attempt something even more shocking. Thankfully these fears were unfounded, and they managed to exit the stage unscathed.

The natives were definitely restless, with plenty of crowd surfing and a pretty feisty mosh pit. I think it’s the heterogeneity of Pogues fans that is so striking. There were biker chicks with tracks on their arms bumping into red-haired Irish chicks dancing the reel, next to the bald leather bedecked punk who slammed into the grey haired man in an Irish fisherman’s sweater who didn’t seem to notice. The long haired, the spikey haired, and the bald were one in their collective irreverence.

We had managed to survive the craziness of the show, Tim’s loud drunken commenting on passers-by, and countless near-misses with beer-cups raised high over our heads without getting into a fight, and were on our way back through the subway to the train. Sport and Cate were a little ahead of me and Tim trailing as we passed some huge black dude. In a flash, the big dude sneezed and I saw Sport whirl around, his long hair and beard making him look extra berzerker-like. Then I saw him wipe his brow with his arm in disgust and utter a protracted “uggh” in the direction of the linebacker-sized cretin. There was a seconds pause when all that passed in my mind was how poetic it would be if I got into a fight on St. Patty’s day because this guy hadn’t covered his nose when he sneezed. I was already picturing the police report, the court papers, the headline. Would I be able to use this as a teaching moment at home? The big dude muttered a quick apology under his breath and we shuffled on.

Tip to Long Island Railroad riders: Watch the Gap.