SPILL FEATURE: A GREAT THING TO HAVE LOOMING – A CONVERSATION WITH THE POGUES’ SPIDER STACY

A GREAT THING TO HAVE LOOMING

A CONVERSATION WITH THE POGUES’ SPIDER STACY

“It was only going to have one ending, and once somebody becomes so enfeebled, and you know that really, the end does come as a mercy for them. And it should be for the rest of us as well. I mean, you don’t want people sort of hanging around, just a husk of themselves, just so you don’t quite have to say goodbye.’

Band reunion tours are always cause for celebration, and even more so when there is a special event or anniversary attached. Such is the case with The Pogues’ latest tour, which started in North America recently, and sees the English Celtic punk band hitting Toronto and Montréal on September 10th and 12th, respectively. This tour marks the first such work that the band has mounted since the passing of former lead singer, songwriter, and creative force Shane MacGowan, in 2023. Notably, it also celebrates the 40th anniversary of The Pogues’ second album Rum, Sodomy & the Lash, released in August of 1985.

Before this tour got rolling, The Pogues’ tin whistle player and sometime singer Spider Stacy chatted with us about how he and founding band members Jem Finer and James Fearnley decided to put the show back on the road. Stacy relates how, in February of 2024, he was approached by Tom Coll of the band Fontaines D.C., to curate the Friday evening of a weekend of Irish music at the MOTH Club, a folk music venue in London, U.K., to celebrate the 40th anniversary celebration of The Pogues’ 1984 debut album, Red Roses for Me. While the event was meant to be low key, it sold out immediately, with a long waiting list. To accommodate demand, it was decided to put the show on at the historic Hackney Empire theatre.

Booking a larger venue meant working with a bigger budget, and Stacy was able to get fellow Pogues’ members accordionist James Fearnley and banjo player Jem Finer to participate. “We just put together this really, really fantastic lineup. There’s this whole new wave of brilliant musicians coming out of Ireland particularly, but not only Ireland. I guess that was the backbone of it, if you like. It just really took off. It was a really fantastic night! And I knew, as the night was unfolding. I was like, ‘Okay, this means we now have to do this again.’ It has to be done in Ireland because there’s no way that we’re going to get away with not doing it in Ireland. I was also, at the same time, aware that next year, Rum, Sodomy & the Lash is 40 years old, and we are going to have to do something about that. And it was a great thing to have this, kind of looming, but it was sort of like, ‘Oh… okay!’ (laughs). But, you know, it was great!”

In December of 2024, the band played an anniversary show in Dublin, celebrating Red Roses for Me, before launching the U.K. leg of the Rum, Sodomy & the Lash anniversary tour this past spring. Of those U.K. shows, Stacy is effusive, saying, “I really have no words for the way these shows have gone. Right from the off, from the first show at Hackney, it’s just been so wild… It reminds me of the old days of, like 1986 or ’87, and it’s these new younger musicians and singers that we’ve got, that are enabling us to do it like this, to do the songs as they should be done. There’s one thing that I really know: if Shane is somehow, you know, able to look down and see that stage with all those women singing, and the Celtic harp, sort of taking centre stage, the huge orchestral drum—an  idea we had ashamedly nicked off (Irish traditional band) Lankum—and [with] the pipes and the brass, he would just be absolutely delighted. He’d absolutely love this!”

Confiding that Shane MacGowan’s happiest times in The Pogues were when the band was still playing around London, the conversation turns to the subject of grief, as it relates to the loss of the band’s original frontman. Reflective, Stacy states, “I think, if we’re talking about grief, and we’re talking about it with regard to Shane, it has to be acknowledged. One’s grief has to be tempered by the fact that Shane had been very, very ill, for a long time. And, with the best will in the world, he wasn’t going to get any better. It was only going to have one ending, and once somebody becomes so enfeebled, and you know that really, the end does come as a mercy for them. And it should be for the rest of us as well. I mean, you don’t want people sort of hanging around, just a husk of themselves, just so you don’t quite have to say goodbye, because sometimes you do have to say goodbye and it’s a terrible thing. But it is what it is, you know. There’s no getting away from it.”

Shane MacGowan left a strong and unique legacy, and The Pogues’ contributions to Celtic music cannot be understated. Arguably, they spearheaded the resurgence and acceptance of Celtic music for mainstream listeners, especially in Canada, where a generation of brilliant Celtic-inspired bands followed in their footsteps. Of being at the vanguard of that trend, Stacy asserts, “I think there’s a couple of things going on there. Certainly, I think we certainly played a big part in opening people’s ears. I think we do have quite a large role to play in this, actually. One of the things about The Pogues that I’ve noticed with the reunion shows, and continuing on with these shows, is the audience at the gigs there. Obviously, there’s people who were around in the old days, there’s the generational thing, people will bring their kids. And you’re getting instances now with people who bring their kids: their kids are bringing their kids. Three generations! But there’s another thing going on, which is just simply that The Pogues seem to have fairly consistently attracted new, younger listeners with each kind of succeeding generation.”

While there is a great array of guest vocalists slated for the North American tour, no matter who takes the lead vocal in these shows, it is clear that Shane MacGowan has left big shoes to fill. Of course, some purists think that it’s simply not The Pogues without MacGowan, an idea that Stacy dismisses out of hand. He stresses that, “people are entitled to their opinions, but I personally think that’s nonsense, you know? Every great songwriter worth their salt has had their songs covered by other people, and Shane is no exception. It’s also, I think, probably valid to point out that it’s not the first time, in fact, that The Pogues have done shows without Shane. We spent six years without Shane, right?”

With a lineup of guests that includes artists Lisa O’Neill, Iona Zajac, Daragh Lynch, John Francis Flynn, and James Walbourne (in addition to the core Pogues members), this tour promises to be a great one. Advance press for these events compare the tour to The Band’s The Last Waltz, though Stacy contends that it is actually more akin to Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue, being more traveling road show than standalone event. He also maintains that this anniversary tour is not a swan song for the band, suggesting, “as far as I’m concerned anyway, the more logical stopping off point would be when we either feel we no longer want to, or we simply cannot, or everyone doesn’t. Everyone just says, ‘back off.’ I think simply, it’s going to be, quite honestly, [that] age will say, ‘Nah. Your best days are behind you.’”

Stacy also points out that, while there are no specific plans to continue touring, there are other Pogues albums yet to be celebrated, such as 1987’s If I Should Fall from Grace with God. He says, jokingly, “Is there really any need to wait until ’27 for Fall from Grace‘s 40th? What about Fall from Grace‘s 39th birthday? You know? Do we have to be so beholden to the decimal? Given that we might well go beyond a sort of 40th celebration of Fall from Grace. I mean, there’ll come a point where we’ll have to start thinking about doing something with the set. So, it’s not just kind of like, largely this or that album, but this is when we start celebrating the anniversaries of the greatest hits I guess!”

There are no plans for the remaining Pogues to release new music, but Stacy admits, “I think there is some stuff that’ll be coming up very shortly, which people haven’t heard before, but not in terms of actual songs that they’ve never heard before. This is more to do with [record label] Warner, rather than these tours. They’re putting out ‘Fairy Tale of New York’ again at Christmastime. And one of the things on that—I can tell you this—is a live recording from Glasgow in 1987, of the first time that ‘Fairy Tale of New York’ was ever played live, at the Glasgow’s Barrowland. If you’ll talk to anyone who’s ever played Glasgow’s Barrowland and has had anything like a good night, that, I will tell you, is simply the best venue in the world! And we got that sort of tidied up a bit and everything, and it sounds absolutely great! We’re going to put the single out basically as a kind of EP, so regular ‘Fairy Tale’ and that’ll be one of the extras.”

Spider Stacy is a person who has gratitude for his life and career, and still loves to tour, sharing the music that he helped to create all those years ago. Fans can be thankful for that fact. Of the Canadian dates on this tour, he closes our conversation by affirming, “I just want to say I’m really looking forward to going back to Canada. Haven’t been for a long, long time, so it’s been nice to be finally getting back.” You can come back any time, Spider!

The Pogues – North America Dates, September 2025

September 5 – Washington DC – Lincoln Theater
September 7 – Boston, MA – Seisíun Festival
September 8 – Philadelphia, PA – Franklin Music Hall (Ted Leo Support)
September 10 – Toronto, ON – History (Cardinals Support)
September 12 – Montreal, QC – MTelus (TBA Support)
September 13 – Ottawa, ON – Cityfolk
September 16 – New York, NY – Terminal 5 (Soft Play Support)
September 17 – New York, NY – Terminal 5 (Jesse Malin Support)
September 19 – Chicago, IL – Riotfest

Artist Links

Photo Credits: Holly Whitaker