But the wheels started coming off when MacGowan was dismissed by the band in 1991 while on tour in Japan for unprofessionalism, stemming from his unquenchable thirst.
The accelerated growth of accomplished musicianship and songwriting in that same brief period is indicative of a pure talent that put Irish folk rock back into the charts. By the end of the same decade, they were headlining Reading Festival in an utterly joyous albeit ramshackle Saturday night performance – the perfectly analogous career summit. Squatting in Kings Cross, the post-punk misfits began their wildly popular live career in 1982 by playing tiny venues around central London. But if Our Lord meant that by filtering the Irish folk tradition popularised by The Clancy Brothers, The Dubliners and The Chieftains through punk rock, adding highly talented musicians and truly gifted songwriting, then, here at least, the Big Fella was bang on the money.īut these Pogues albums only tell half the story.
