Richard Hawley

I know it's a little old hat to see the Pogues again at chrimbo but last night's gig was an absolute hoot from start to finish. The Stranglers were doing a greatest hits set which started with 5 minutes, ended with Duchess and didn't let up at all in between. The Pogues, and in particular Shane and James Fearnley, were on fantastic form. Shane was his usual unintelligible self apart from when he was singing. How does that work? The one piece of between song banter that actually jumped out of his drunken slurrings was when he said 'where am I?' which was followed by a 'Manchester' call from Spider and a quiet heckle from the audience, this provoked a 'you bunch of fat, ugly bastards!' response from the great man. Absolute genius, even when he fell over on stage and had to be helped to his feet by a couple of roadies.

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I'm not denying, that I was trying, to appear nonchalant

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

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now,then!

You've just got to love him.................

yes...............................

The Pogues have done some of the best live shows I've ever seen. And they can be quite emotional at times. I've never seen so many grown men crying - outside of a football ground - as I have at a Pogues gig. Or perhaps it's just because I saw them in London and we're all softy southern bastards down here?