Sometime within the last year, while reading about the wonderful Irish band the Pogues, I thought I read somewhere that their infamous lead singer, Shane MacGowan, was finally off the sauce.

Erroneous. Erroneous!!

Well, either that report was incorrect or he has since fallen off the wagon. And gotten run over by it.

Don't get me wrong, Friday's Pogues concert at the Roseland Ballroom was great. Fantastic. But everything I have read about MacGowan's legendary drinking seems to be spot on. He stumbled onto the stage and everything that came out of his mouth that wasn't sung was completely mumbled.

But again, it wasn't enough to ruin the show. The anticipation of "how many more songs will he be able to remain upright" was interesting throughout the evening. He sang the first four songs, then rested for the next one while the band played a jaunty tune sans lyrics. It was then one on, one off for most of the rest of the show, with the band's flute player ably filling in on lead vocals when necessary. MacGowan did finish strong, belting out several tunes during the encore.

I think whoever recorded this video must have been standing in front of me, as this was our exact view, about six rows from the stage...



When Shannon and I went to the Dropkick Murphys concert at the Roseland the Friday before, we were amazed by the hostility in the crowd - incredibly violent slam dancing and moshing. We chalked it up to crazy kids and I figured it would be much calmer at the Pogues, given the generally older fan base.

Again, erroneous.

It just meant then when the older, bigger (read: fatter) kids fell, they fell much harder. I'm sure several concert attendees visited their chiropractors after the show.

And a word about the Roseland Ballroom ... what a fantastic venue. I had never been there but have now been twice in a week. It's a small, old-school dance hall/theater that holds a large-enough crowd to make a show loud and rocking while at the same time feeling like an intimate venue.

Thanks to Wikipedia, I learned the original Roseland was founded in Philly, funded by the fine folks at Yuengling.

Yuengling just gives and gives...