The Pogues - Live in Tokyo, Japan (11-30-88) Part 1
The Pogues - Live in Tokyo, Japan (11-30-88) Part 2
"One summer evening drunk to hell" I heard The Pogues for the very first time. What happened to your heart when you first heard "A Pair of Brown Eyes"? Mine stopped. I didn't know there could be such raw beauty in the world. I was crawling on the kitchen floor, pounding my hands against the linoleum in time and weeping. That's how I recall it, anyway.
This one's for the kitchen floor (and raindogzilla, who wanted some Pogues).
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Póg Mo Thóin - By Request
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I was a little late on the Pogues bandwagon. I actually heard "Pair o' Brown Eyes" first from the lungs of Greg Dulli as the Afghan Whigs- pre SubPop, covered it in a little Lexington dive known as the Thrashcan. Greg was an old friend from Cin'ti and when I complimented him on the "new" song after the show, he steered me in the direction of "Rum, Sodomy & the Lash".
"McCormack and Richard Tauber are singing by the bed.
There's a glass of punch below your feet and an angel at your head.
There's devils on each side of you with bottles in their hands.
You need one more drop of poison and you'll dream of foreign lands..."
The tape growled at me from the boombox and with no tangible proof- like DNA or lineage or something, just the shiver up my spine and the quasi-epileptic movements I'm known to call dancing, I was Irish.
I've seen the Misfits, seen the Minutemen, seen Husker Du, seen the Rollins' Flag, seen Tom Waits for chrissakes, I've been bruised, lacerated, spat upon, and booted in too many pits to count but the absolute best live show I've ever seen in my life was the Pogues touring "If I Should Fall From Grace With God" at Bogart's in Cincinnati.
The pit was immobilized by sheer numbers, Irish farmhands from Kentucky horsefarms were on each others' shoulders waving huge flags, Shane was just drunk enough to be charming but not so knackered as to impede his performance, the band was shit hot, the first of two beer bottles I caught in the noggin split my forehead open but copious sweat and the inability to look down and see the reddening of my once white shirt left me unawares til the show was over. It didn't matter. The whole evening was just insane, an experience on so many levels- up to and including the tion to a hot barmaid with a maternal streak who corraled me after the show to doctor my battle wound. Then we just played doctor. ;)
As an aside, did you ever hear the story Shane told of touring in Belgium, where he was approached by some enthusiastic but English-challenged Belgian fans who, for some reason, wanted the Pogues to play "Cold Turkey" by the Damned? The garbled request came out as them wanting to hear the "Turkish Song of the Damned".
Many thanks.
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