Pickled Irishman

I love coming home from a concert covered in bruises. I love the putrid smell of spilt beer and the sweat of 1000 Scottish men. I love the ringing in my ears.

Yes, it's true that the Pogues have to sort of prop Shane McGowan up onstage, it's true that the rest of the band seems in fine form and good health, as Shane sort of bobs and sways and looks as though the image of him standing of his own free will must be some sort of optical illusion. The band glances at him with a bit of sadness, a bit of frustration and embarrassment. My Irish friend says, well, he is a bit of an embarrassment. But the fact remains that the audience is there to see Shane, to see the spectacle and the legend. The rest of the band knows this; this is, I'm sure, the only reason they are working with him again. What's truly astonishing is that EVEN on three bottles of whiskey a day, even though he can barely stand, he's a bit bloated and unwell, nearly knocking on death's door (though he has been for years), even with all this, he can STILL fucking sing. He drank an entire bottle of Powers while performing onstage . . . I should say, he drank an entire bottle of Powers in about three goes while performing onstage (yes I did see him down half of the bottle in one go, and proceed to sing a rousing Irish traditional without hitting a single sour note, without even forgetting any words). So is he embarrassing? Or is he impressive? It's sort of bittersweet, true. I'm sure he hasn't written a song in years, and this is a bit painful when he sings these brilliant brilliant fucking songs, these songs with lyrics and melodies that simply tear you to pieces with their poetic genius, their brutal sincerity. And I know, (we all know), that if he were, by some unlikely chance, to suddenly quit drinking, he would surely drop dead immediately. I'll keep my ticket as a memento to prove the unlikely truth that I did see Shane McGowan perform with the Pogues in 2006, he already about 85% pickled, with dark sunglasses and a pirate shirt, mumbling incomprehensibly but still tearing the house down, and still STANDING, and when he spun around for nearly five minutes at the end of "Fairytale of New York," I was SURE he would fall over. But he never did, he was still standing all the way to the end.