Gig review: The Pogues and friends provide rousing revival of debut album at 3Arena 

The Pogues' concert in Dublin to mark the 40th anniversary of Red Roses For Me included an emotional speech from Victoria Mary Clarke 

The Pogues and friends on stage at 3Arena for the anniversary concert of Red Roses for me: in front, Radie Peat, Charles Hendy and Spider Stacy.

The Pogues – Red Roses For Me, 3Arena, Dublin, ★★★★☆

After a rapturously-received London show celebrating the 40th anniversary of Red Roses For Me back in May, chances were The Pogues would do it again. Their debut album is worthy of acclaim just for introducing their folk/punk hybrid in the first place and if there was any doubt about its lasting influence then tonight’s guest list puts it to bed.

Of the original crew we got James Fearnley, playing the accordion like a bulldozer going through a glasshouse, Jem Finer on banjo, and Spider Stacy on vocals and tin whistle. They were augmented by a crack band, particularly Fontaines man Tom Coll, trying to find the shortest distance to the centre of the earth through his drums, and a marvellous horn section.

All the guest vocalists gave a decent account of themselves, but if I were handing out medals, I’d plump for the (Threepenny) operatic claiming of ‘The Auld Triangle’ by the remarkable Nadine Shah who hardly needed a mic and came back later to scream Lankum’s Daragh Lynch off the stage during an equally brilliant ‘Down In The Ground Where The Dead Men Go’, and a fantastically theatrical turn from Bad Seed Jim Sclavunos wringing ever drop of pathos out of ‘And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda’.

Red Roses For Me, the debut album by The Pogues, has recently been re-released.

Junior Brother’s “acquired taste” vocals were as perfect a fit for the boisterous ‘Sea Shanty’ as the Essex vowels of Stick In The Wheel’s Nicola Kearney were for a hurdy-gurdy-driven ‘Dark Streets Of London’, and Fontaines frontman Grian Chatten led a barnstorming ‘Streams Of Whiskey’.

The atmosphere was both anarchic and euphoric, reminding this old man of all those great Pogues shows I can’t quite remember. The encore proved to be the cherry on the (Christmas) cake. An emotional Victoria Mary Clarke explained how she was initially reluctant because of Shane MacGowan’s absence but was glad she came. She asked us to remember her late, great husband by being nice to someone who needs it.

 Then Stacy wondered if there was a song for this time of year? ‘Fairytale Of New York’, sung by a never better Radie Peat and the Mary Wallopers' Charles Hendy, could have put a smile on a traffic warden.

MacGowan would have loved it, especially because this evening proved again, if proof were needed, that The Pogues were never just a one-man show. A joyous and deserved triumph.