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"Good evening, Stavanger!" was the welcoming statment from Shane MacGowan last time he played in Bergen.
With a solid mike as a walking stick Shane sucsessfully managed to stay on his feets most of the consert in Kvarteret 1995. Now he`s back in Bergen, some weeks later than first planned, reason: Shane fell off a barstool and broke his hip.
Shane MacGowan lives up to the the repurtation of rockstars abuse of alkohol and dope. Yes, he overdo them so much that the Pogues found no other solution than to kick the characteristic singer out of his own band.
Many was surprized when Shane came back on the scene with the Popes, and they were soon famous for more then sweaty irish folkrock. Their last tour was an endless show of drunken riot, already when the irishmen came dancing off the Newcastle-Stavanger boat, they had to consentrate themselves not diving into the ground. The first stop was Stavanger, but when the boat had left for Haugesund they realised that their tin-whistle player was missing!. In the state they were in it was offcourse to much expected that everybody should make it off the boat. The arranger went mad, but the rest of the musicans just laught it off. A couple off hours later the sound check was done, without the whistle player and without Shane. Finally the whistle player gets off the boat in Haugesund , and flys back to Stavanger. The former Pogues singer doesn`t show before the konsert is about to start. Meanwhile a journalist from Stavanger Aftenblad has called to warn that the great Shane is loaded and more already early in the afternoon. The arranger tries to tell the tour-leader this, but the man who`s supposed to be in charge is the drunkest off them all!. He just walks about sweating, boozing and snering messages nobody understands. Another crew member tell not to worry, cause " Shane has no problem draining a bottle off whiskey, just before going onstage."
When the consert is about to start, Shane demands another bottle of Whiskey, earlier in the afternoon the Shane and his band has consumed an "impossible" amount off Guiness and a dusin bottle`s off spirit. The arranger hands Shane the Whiskey and crosses his fingers. A couple of hours later everybody is relived because, even if Shane was to drunk to talk understandable, his voice was exeptional.
Some days later on a consert in Trondheim the band seems fresher than in Stavanger and Bergen, but now the soundman is to drunk to control his job, and Shane is drowned in a enormous feedback. After the consert the guitar player, beats down a guard whose trying to tell that your not allowed to smoke dope in Samfundet. This is were the tour of Norway ends, they`re off to Sweden in rolling pharmacy of a bus.
A couple of years later the tour-leader and the soundman has quit, but the rest off the band is back in Norway, their first stop is USF, Bergen It will probably be a drunken bawl, but Shane is a living legend who must be seen while still able to preform.