The Star: December 07, 2023

The Star Thursday December 7 2023
22
NEWS
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz
Remembering The Pogues’
wild night in Christchurch
Neil Reid looks back
on the life of legendary
Irish musician Shane
MacGowan, 65, who
died late last week,
and a wild night in
Christchurch during
one of his tours with
The Pogues
AMAZING SONGS – and
wild times both on and off the
stage – were a constant in Shane
MacGowan’s music career.
And some of his hell-raising
antics while touring New
Zealand with the legendary Irish
band The Pogues were laid bare
in a book on his life, which he
gave his approval to, including
how a visit here in 1988 first
truly highlighted to bandmates
that he was on a path to selfdestruction.
MacGowan’s drug and alcohol
abuse had started spiralling
out of control prior to the tour,
with his reliance on substances,
including heroin, leaving him
comatose during some gigs.
In the only authorised
biography of the music great –
Furious Devotion: The Life of
Shane MacGowan, which was
released in late 2021 – author
Richard Balls charted the highs
and lows of the musician’s life.
That includes band members
talking about the group’s wild
1988 and 1990 tours to New
Zealand; a country where The
Pogues had huge chart success
and attracted sell-out crowds to
their gigs.
Balls wrote in the book of the
1988 tour: “It was amid that
Antipodean heat that alarm bells
about his sanity rang louder than
ever.
“Shane’s erratic behaviour was
hardly a news story. But it was
getting worse.
“Other band members had
been patient down the years, but
they were being sorely tested,
especially when it affected the
group’s performance. Audience
members might not have minded
what state Shane was in. In fact,
some seemed to turn up wanting
to see him wasted.”
After one 1988 Christchurch
show during the chaotic
tour, The Pogues’ incensed
sound engineer Paul Scully
asked whether band members
were going to put up with
MacGowan’s booze and drug use
impacting the band.
During the heated dressing
room showdown, Scully yelled:
“Is this how it’s going to be?
You’re just going to watch the
guy die in front of your eyes”.
Balls wrote that the band,
minus MacGowan, had another
crisis meeting at 4am to discuss
how they should handle their
singer’s addictions, which a
growing number of people feared
would kill him.
Meanwhile, the singer was
holed up in his Christchurch
hotel room, on another drug
bender, with a paintbrush in his
hand.
“He had taken to bringing pots
of paint around him on tour
and during the early hours of
the morning, driven by copious
amounts of speed, he went into
a creative frenzy,” Balls writes in
Furious Devotion.
Initially joining him in
the Christchurch hotel room
were The Pogues’ roadie and
MacGowan’s long-time friend
and future personal manager,
Joey Cashman.
“We were on the floor and we
had all those pens with indelible
ink and these huge pads. I said,
‘I’m going to have to get some
kip, at least a couple of hours,’
and I f***ed off,” Cashman said.
“I came round in the morning
and Shane had painted himself
with indelible ink. He’d
painted himself blue and the
whole room, even the mirror –
everything was blue.
“Frank (band manager Frank
Murray) said, ‘Where’s Shane,
what’s keeping him?’, and I
said, ‘Maybe you should have a
look yourself’. He went ballistic.
When I see Shane painting
himself and the room blue, I go,
‘This is quite cool’.”
MacGowan later reasoned that
the impromptu 1988 artwork in
the Christchurch hotel room was
inspired both by his drug intake
and links that he thought he had
with Māori.
“This particular night I started
getting a very strong, totally
real feeling that the Māoris were
talking to me,” MacGowan said.
“You see, you talk to yourself
in your head when you’re
speeding and you get turned
into two people, who talk to each
other in your head.”
The Pogues were to return to
New Zealand two years later.
No hotel rooms were defaced
during the tour, but again
the band was plagued by
MacGowan’s severe addiction
issues.
Balls wrote that things had
DIVIDE: While some fans of The Pogues turned up to see
how wasted Shane MacGowan would be, his drug and
alcohol abuse left band mates (above) fuming.
“reached an all-time low”, and
in a tour of Germany prior to
The Pogues’ arrival in New
Zealand “Shane was so wrecked
some nights that the band left
him face-down on the dressing
room floor and walked on stage
without him”.
The subsequent tour of New
Zealand and Australia was a
“disaster”, he wrote.
Co-vocalist and tin whistle
player Spider Stacy had to take
over singing duties on the
tour-opening gig in Perth after
MacGowan “staggered off” the
stage.
“In Wellington, New Zealand,
Shane collapsed on stage
and then hauled himself up,
smashing the microphone stand
against the floor,” Balls wrote.
“Back in the dressing room, he
sat slurring, apparently asking
for a cigarette.
“Andrew’s (drummer Andrew
Rankin) anger got the better of
him and he knocked him off the
bench he was slumped on and
caused him to hit his mouth
as he fell. A scuffle broke out.
RETURN:
Advertisement
for The Pogue’s
1990 tour of
Australia and
New Zealand.
PHOTO:
CONCERTS WIKI
Things were unravelling.”
Balls wrote that by the
time Rankin unleashed his
physical frustrations backstage,
MacGowan was well out of
control.
“Shane’s isolation from the rest
of the band had never been so
pronounced and his deepening
heroin addiction meant things
would only deteriorate further,”
he wrote.
“Not until he and (road
manager) Charlie MacLennan
had disappeared for a fix could
he stagger – or be dragged – on
to the stage.”
The Pogues’ accordion player
James Fearnley added: “Charlie
would take him into a room and
put whatever up his nose was
deemed to be necessary to get
him through a couple of hours
on stage.
“I’m not saying that was a
regular thing, but I’m not saying
it wasn’t either. But it was a
routine they had that enabled
Shane to get on stage and it
involved locking themselves in a
room.”
MacGowan battled severe
ill-health for more than two
decades before his death.
That included being confined
to a wheelchair after suffering a
hip injury. Doctors believed that
given the state of his health, if
he underwent surgery to repair
damage to the joint he would not
survive the operation.
Despite the majority of the
band members being born
in England, The Pogues are
regarded as one of Ireland’s
greatest musical exports.
During their legendary career
– which includes a stint when
MacGowan was let go due to
his alcohol and drug use – their
greatest hits included Fairytale
of New York, If I Should Fall
From Grace From God, A Rainy
Night in Soho, The Body of an
American, Streams of Whiskey
and Dirty Old Town.
– NZ Herald