Joyce Morgan, Peter McCallum and Kate Prendergast
Updated April 6, 2026 — 11:32am, first published April 5, 2026 — 11:59am
MUSIC
THE POGUES
Sydney Opera House, April 5
Reviewed by KATE PRENDERGAST
★★★★★
There are some bands you thank your godforsaken stars to experience live, and bejesus – even without their legendary frontman – The Pogues are one of them.
The ashes of Shane MacGowan, that curse-rattled bard with the tombstone teeth, were scattered on the River Shannon three years gone, but his “rapscallion, angry, weeping passed-out songs” (to quote Tom Waits) and whiskey-soaked spirit howled like a banshee through the Concert Hall on Easter Sunday, turning its docile crowd by the end into a hot-blooded rabble.
We were here to honour the late singer-songwriter, and 40 years of the Celtic punk-rockers’ break-out album, Rum Sodomy & the Lash.
Founding members James Fearnley, Jem Finer and Spider Stacey led the charge, with more than a dozen instruments behind them. There was a brass section, a drum the size of a baby rhino pounded by the Bad Seeds drummer, Stacey’s tin whistle, Fearnley’s “gristle whistle”, guitars, a harp, a banjo, a hurdy-gurdy and more, plus four guest vocalists.
Such a carousing motley was created, it seemed a shame that more drinks weren’t being spilled, bodies lurching or heads knocked together (as per their heyday). That feral live atmosphere and multi-instrumental grind-up you just can’t recreate on any recording, especially not a studio album – not even one as grand as Elvis Costello’s production of Rum.
Lisa O’Neill and Iona Zajac – and Stacey of course – did a bang-on job filling their lungs with the songs MacGowan would have sung. O’Neill, with an almost unearthly plangent voice, got the pride of Dirty Old
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