The Pogues - or rather surviving original members Spider Stacy, James Fearnley and Jem Finer, plus friends - will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the band's classic second album, 1985's Rum Sodomy & the Lash, with six UK shows in May. Nadine Shah, Lankum's Darragh Lynch and Lisa O'Neill are among those will be joining the trek as guest vocalists.
In a new [paywalled] interview with The Telegraph, Finer admits that touring without the band's late, much-missed frontman Shane MacGowan will be “more poignant”, but adds, “This probably wouldn’t be happening in this way if Shane was here, so it’s what it is.”
Looking back on the band's original incarnation, Finer recalls that it was “by turns wonderful, ecstatic, thrilling, boring, horrible, oppressive, heartbreaking... It was like a family of weird brothers and occasional sisters.”
Speaking to Classic Rock magazine last month, for a feature about the making of Rum, Sodomy & The Lash, Finer recalled that Shane MacGowan was “often a difficult person to motivate.”
“It would take weeks to even do the simplest thing,” he remembered. “There was endless procrastination. But then, great focus.”
“Shane could be maddening,” he admits to The Telegraph. “He could take a few weeks to finally get around to doing something but once we got down to working he was always funny and inspiring and a generous collaborator.”
Finer also admits that he's not entirely comfortable with the idea of himself, Fearnley and Stacy being billed as The Pogues when they hit the road without MacGowan or the late Philip Chevron or Darryl Hunt being involved.
“I wouldn’t call it The Pogues,” he says. “But I still haven’t figured out what I would call it”.
The 40th anniversary Rum, Sodomy & The Lash tour begins in Leeds on May 1, and will visit Birmingham (May 2), London (May 3), Glasgow (May 6) and Manchester (May 7) before closing in Newcastle on May 8.
Tickets are available here.
