WEDNESDAY, OCT. 31:

Ireland—a land of drunken poets and a musical tradition steeped in same, or should I say drowned? To see the Pogues is to be witness to a several-century-long party where you drink and cry and mourn and celebrate and dance and laugh and, uh, drink, and smoke, and if you fall down drunk, then your friend laughs and picks you up and says “fook, mate, y’all right thar?” and puts their arm around you as you sing your way back from the pub, and go home and drink and sing some more and read some poetry—no, wait, that’s another night. The Pogues entered the stage Halloween night to the Clash—a nice tight shout-out to fellow punks—dressed, no joke, as Mariachi players. This? Is funny. Those fookin Irish. Funny, poetic, drunk. They proceeded to play the best damned set of all time. When they got to “Dirty Old Town,” half the audience was sweaty with arms and drinks around each other, singing at the ceiling. It might be possible that Shane MacGowan, while smoking and throwing drinks at the audience but maturely (somewhat) sober, was more intelligible than us drunken fools in the audience. And after two impeccably fun and well-deserved (been playing for some 25 years) encores—and doing the jig until we got calf cramps—the band threw what was left of their drinks at us, and thanked the audience. No, Pogues, thank YOU. (CH)