Bloguemahone: Dispatches from The Pogues Tour Bus in the lower Circles of Hell by James Fearnley

Shane came into rehearsal Ôø?professionally lateÔø?, as he wittily put it, with that gnashing laugh he has, the first day of rehearsal. I think heÔø?d had to be woken up, in his flat. He wasnÔø?t as sartorial as IÔø?ve seen him of late, though he still has his brothel-creepers that I became familiar with coming across on the dressing room floor when we were on tour at Christmas, as he felt the need to air his rather curious-looking feet (and to air, with Joey, the top half of his body, at least one evening, where were we? Newcastle I think). He staggered in at four in the afternoon wearing a tophat that looked as though someone had attempted to contain a firework inside it.

Rehearsals went reasonably well. After so many years playing these songs, recording them, putting them together, rehearsing them, theyÔø?re Ôø? well, internalized, now, part of our fabric somehow, in our bones. I donÔø?t think we actually needed the two days we set aside for rehearsal Ôø? other to remind ourselves whether or not there were three or four verses before the break in Old Main Drag (on the record, and I remember when Shane wrote the song and we put it together in rehearsal, it was supposed to be symmetrical with three before and three after the break), and for Andrew to get used to the rather springy skin on the bass drum of the rented (with a finish that was almost gold lamÔø?) drum kit, and to remind ourselves of the chords to Thousands Are Sailing, which have always been a problem for a lot of us. As it turned out, when it came to the festival at Stoke Park in Guildford, when Jem put on the gunmetal-blue suit he last wore seven months ago for the Christmas tour and went through the pockets, he found the chord crib-sheet heÔø?d used then, so, at least he knew what to do.

The second day of rehearsals was as enfeeblingly hot as the first day. We ran through the set a couple of times, and, though we didnÔø?t actually have time for it at whatÔø?s known as Ôø?GuilfestÔø?, I was amazed that we hadnÔø?t any trouble with Bottle of Smoke, because that one caused the most problems last Christmas: none of us could say at that time, with any certainty, how the break, which Jem wrote, went. We realized, from the live recording, that Terry was playing one thing, me another, and Jem something else. Last Christmas we spent a bit of time trying to discover some concensus as to how the tune actually went. This time, however, for some reason, donÔø?t know why, it was all there Ôø? maybe a bit of contemporizing from Terry, because the dear boy just canÔø?t help it, but, in the heel of the hunt, well, we just didnÔø?t play it at Guilfest. Perhaps in Japan.

I met the band bus coming down whatÔø?s normally the cycle track across Stoke Park at Guilfest and motioned it in through the artistesÔø? gate, to make my way, donÔø?t ask me why, to the guest entrance. I had to come back to where IÔø?d guided the tour bus in and wait outside for ten minutes in a face-off with a rather red-faced, scottish (why are they always Scottish?) security manager who wouldnÔø?t believe me, until the tour manager came (whoÔø?s Scottish too, hmm) to break the deadlock. The band had a straighforward journey down from London. ThatÔø?s tour managers for you. The Pogues have an exceedlingly good one, whoÔø?s as executively functional as you can get and intimately knows that there are more ways than one to skin a cat. WasnÔø?t always the case with tour managers. It is now.

So, we change into our suits Ôø? Jem into the aforementioned, with the chord sheet in; Philip into something suavely black; Darryl into a suit IÔø?m sure dates from my wedding; Terry into a charcoal number, with his blue shirt tucked out, which IÔø?ve told him about, but will he listen?; Spider, with a new, rather fetching, quasi-Steve Marriot hair-cut (an opening came up, with Sarah, nobody but whom he trusts to go near his hair), in a light grey suit, and his shirt tucked out, but I can handle that, for some reason; myself in the suit I bought at a vintage clothing stall in Santa Monica Civic Center and which has seen me through every gig IÔø?ve done, with the Low and Sweet Orchestra, Cranky George, Pogues, since 1995. Shane obviously hadnÔø?t read the band-meeting minutes and went on-stage in the t-shirt and black trousers IÔø?d seen him in last Ôø? the front of the trousers peppered with cigarette burns (reminded me of the pub game I played once, where you peel the tissue paper from the silver foil of twenty Embassy, stick it over the top of a pint glass, put a coin in the middle of it, and then burn holes in it with cigarettes with the person who makes the coin fall into the bottom of the glass buying the next round).

Shane changed the set round at the last minute, which might have put another band into a panic (although the sound and lighting technicians donÔø?t like it one bit, for all the cues going to shit and everything). I saw him scribbling over the set list in the porta-dressing room, arms on his knees, stabbing at the paper with a marker, wiping his nose with a fore-arm, impatiently cuffing the paper. I left him to it. We all left him to it. DoesnÔø?t do to come between the bowman and his target. As it turned out, the first three songs were just the right sort of songs to open the set with (although the front-of-house sound-man might have wanted something slow to get all the levels sorted out, but, hell, you canÔø?t come out in front of Ôø? how many? DonÔø?t know. Fifteen thousand maybe. Between ten and fifteen. Difficult to tell, although the heads stretched right back to the customary, almost medieval-looking ring of tents at the very back – potato places, shops, that sort of thing, though I didnÔø?t concentrate that much on whatÔø?s out at the very back. Streams of Whiskey, then If I Should Fall From Grace With God, then Sally MacLennane. Those are hard work for an accordion-player that wants to jump around at the dramatic bits. My legs (and the knees of my trousers) are ruined.

Shane brought with him onto the stage a large pitcher of iced water and a wet towel, which he wore for some of the time. He had a familiar old thing going on in his head, for this gig: a recital, a disjointed recital of half-remembered phrases that have passed his way in his life, coming out in a sort of bebop of verbalizing, starting out with some improbable connection heÔø?s made, and then just going off on that. Ôø?ItÔø?s nice to play in Denmark again!Ôø? he said, whereupon, heÔø?s off into Hamlet, but runs dry because he canÔø?t remember the whole graveside soliloquy. Spider, however, came to his rescue with something, IÔø?m not sure, from Henry the 4th (not sure which part), which he does remember in its entirety, because Spider has a photographic memory, but one of those panoramic cameras, if you know what I mean. ItÔø?s great to hear Shane go off into some verbal jazz territory, like the character Ron Perlman plays in Ôø?The Name Of The RoseÔø?, and itÔø?s great to hear Spider spitting out Shakespeare. DoesnÔø?t happen a lot nowadays. In that way, it was like a gig-of-old, the two of them playing off one another.

And, like a gig of old, was the way we played the rest of the show Ôø? by the seat of our pants, with almost bemused looks up from our instruments Ôø? or even not bothering to look up at all Ôø? when Shane neglects a cue, or rides off digging his stirrups into the flank of one of the verses after an instrumental break in Fiesta and would, at one time, have left us a mess of limbs, scrabbling in the dust. Nowadays, however, weÔø?re cheek-by-jowl with his frothing steed and heading it round toward the paddock, or crashing into the barn, one of the two, with Spider banging his head on Ôø? well, not the proper beer tray it should have been, because a runner came back from the shops, having been sent out for beer-trays, with a catering pack of those silver-foil tv-dinner trays which Spider left crumpled on the floor. At the end of Fiesta, Jem went off into some penetrating Coltrane territory.

IÔø?m sure someone will have the set list. I donÔø?t have a copy, and IÔø?m buggered if I can remember how it went. We played Rainy Night In Soho in a way I donÔø?t remember ever playing it Ôø? slow, much slower, and, I think, with a refinement the song hasnÔø?t had for a while. I questioned Terry over the top of the piano if he thought it was too slow, but managed to stop him going over to try to get Andrew to speed it up a bit, because that wouldnÔø?t have done, and besides, I was getting to like it slow like that. Shane forgot how the verse after the break went, but let the crowd remind him how it was, and with a fine sense of etiquette almost, took their cue and started the verse again, once he had it.

ThatÔø?s all I have to say about Guilfest. Afterwards I walked fucking miles through Guildford to get a drink in a hotel bar with holes in both knees of my suit.

Except Ôø? since the BBC Radio 2 vans were out the back, IÔø?m wondering if some of it, or maybe all, might be available on the Radio 2 website. I listened to Fiesta on the radio last night (Saturday) and had a laugh at how we did it.