REVIEW / The Pogues are alive and well in L.A.

He's not dead, he just looks like it. Shane MacGowan is still kicking with the world's best-ever traditional-Irish/punk band. (Photo courtesy of ShaneMagGowan.com)

If you were a music aficionado in Kansas City in the late 1970s through the late 1980s and you frequented places like Capers Corners, Penny Lane and the Music Exchange, you probably know or got acquainted with fellow music nut, Mike Webber.

Mike is now the owner of an airport and air-cargo consulting firm based in Prairie Village, a profession that takes him all over the country and the world. Recently, while in Los Angeles, Mike caught the original Pogues, including Shane MacGowan, at a club in Los Angeles. Here is his riveting report about Shane, the band, the music, the brawls and the setlist:

Had the pleasure of spending a couple of nights last week with one of my favorite bands, The Pogues, at the Wiltern in downtown Los Angeles. The lineup included all the original members - Shane MacGowan, Jem Finer, Spider Stacy, James Fearnley, Darryl Hunt, Andrew Ranken, Philip Chevron and Terry Woods. Given that these two nights were part of a 4-night stand in the area (3 at the Wiltern and 1 in Anaheim), tickets were relatively easy to obtain.

Both nights I paid below face value, paying $50 for a second row LOGE ticket for the first night and $20 for a general admission floor ticket the second night. These would have been $75 and $65 (including service charge) tickets, respectively. As I'll explain later, I'm glad to have had the opportunity to view the Pogues from both vantages.

The Pogues were everything one could possibly want at this point in their lives (and mine, for that matter). They're playing longer sets - about two hours - than they played in their younger days before the 15 year hiatus that began in 1991. While I could nitpick, within the confines of a 2-hour block of time, they played everything that most Pogues fans would want to hear. Never having troubled the charts in America, it's not as though they had to play all the hits.

With few exceptions, the roughly 90-minute main set simply moved from peak to peak. Taking the stage appropriately to the Clash's "Straight to Hell", "The Boys from the County Hell" launched straight into "Streams of Whiskey" ... Shane with a lit cigarette dangling from his lips and a bottle in each hand. Throughout the night, any guitar solo was reason enough for Shane to go swap a couple of empties. With most other hard-charging acts, ballads might be deemed a momentum-breaker but not when delivered by a figure as compelling as MacGowan and particularly not when the ballads in question are as edgy as "A Pair of Brown Eyes" and "The Old Main Drag", for example. While the tempo offered the band and audience a chance to catch their collective breath, it's not exactly "Penny Lane" in terms of native sentimentality when the incomparably weather-beaten MacGowan utters:

In the tube station the old ones who were on their way out

Would dribble and vomit and grovel and shout

And the coppers would come along and push them about

And I wished I could escape from the old main drag

Another of my favorites also had a MacColl family connection, being the Pogues' take on Kirsty's father Ewan's "Dirty Old Town". A terrific song ably recorded by Rod Stewart on his debut solo record in 1969 but bested (in my opinion) by the Pogues. It's a ruddy ballad at best and who better to deliver a song that meets that description than Shane MacGowan.

Capped with the closing "Fiesta", there were so many numbers that took the band (and audience) from peak-to-peak. That second encore closer followed a first encore that ended with the rollicking "The Irish Rover" - which always seems to go up to "eleven" as Shane tears into the last chorus. Throughout the set, "The Body of an American", "If I Should Fall from Grace with God", "The Boys from the County Hell" and several others all seemed to set the energy level at unmatchable heights ... until the next song raised the bar. Inevitably, the focus is on the Pogues' incorrigible front-man, what most impresses about those high energy numbers is the band. In particular, James Fearnley drives that band like possibly no accordionist ever - at least one whose name wasn't Flaco Jimenez.

As I observed the interplay of the musicians and variety of instruments tackled, I thought of Los Lobos. Another even more obscure reference for the Pogues is the Band, who were not only adept multi-instrumentalists but also had that whole "found art" element to them. Whether covers like "The Irish Rover" and "Dirty Old Town" or any number of originals, there has always been something about the Pogues - even at their most punk - that harkens way back. And MacGowan can still offer a convincing: "I'm not singing for the future / I'm not dreaming of the past / I'm not talking of the first time / I never think about the last"

So, I'm glad that I had the contrasting experiences of a reserved seat safely tucked away in the LOGE from where I could really concentrate on the band's performance and the experience of being on the floor of a Pogues show in LA, which reminded me of nothing so much as the prison riot scenes in Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers. I've never (anywhere) seen so much fighting in a contained space. Nor have I ever seen security guards take the worst of it as much as I did that night. I suppose that the law of averages should be such that a city with a population in the low eight-figures could easily provide a floor full of native Irishmen in a 1,600 seat hall. These folks weren't poseurs wearing leftover St. Patrick's Day beads. There was nothing but Gaelic spoken in that section. Most fights involving adults that I've seen in recent years has involved at least one (and usually both) party clearly hoping someone intervenes before the altercation really starts. The folks at the Pogues show were clearly NOT looking for a safe retreat. Shane was enjoying every bit of it, observing that "last night's audience was kind of boring ... thank you for the effort".

Intro: The Clash, "Straight to Hell" on P.A.

Streams of Whiskey, If I Should Fall from Grace With God, The Broad Majestic Shannon, Turkish Song of the Damned, Young Ned of the Hill, A Pair of Brown Eyes, Boys from the County Hell, White City, Tuesday Morning, The Old Main Drag, Sayonara, Repeal of the Licensing Laws, The SunnySide Of The Street, The Body Of An American, Lullaby of London, Thousands Are Sailing, Dirty Old Town, Bottle of Smoke, The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn

Encore: Sally MacLennane, Rainy Night in Soho, The Irish Rover, Fairytale of New York (with Ella Finer)