Shane MacGowan and The Pogues look forward to Summer Pops date

Jul 10 2009 by Jade Wright, Liverpool Daily Post

SHANE MacGOWAN’S last trip to Liverpool was an eventful one, to say the least.

He was arrested in his dressing room and spent a night in police cells at St Anne's Street after a man claimed he had been hit in the face by a microphone stand MacGowan had allegedly hurled into the audience at his Liverpool University gig.

MacGowan said he hit the concert-goer by mistake. Police searched the venue for the mic stand in question but it had been stolen by a fan, desperate for a souvenir.

Nonetheless, the Everton fan is looking forward to returning here next week to play the Echo Arena Liverpool as part of the Summer Pops, and we can look forward to “Pretty much what we've been doing for the last 26 years,” says Shane. The Pogues were founded in King's Cross, in 1982, as Pogue Mahone. They tried busking, but didn't do well.

But they persisted and succeeded, and over the years Shane has worked with Sinead O'Connor, Christy Moore, Van Morrison, Pink Floyd's Michael Kamen, and, famously, duetted with Kirsty McColl for Fairytale in New York.

Johnny Depp sometimes plays guitar for him, Pete Doherty idolises him and his sublime ode of love lost, Rainy Night In Soho, was covered by superb Irish troubadour Damien Dempsey last year. He can't choose any favourite songs he's written – “It all depends on the time of day,” he shrugs. But, he says, if he ended up in a karaoke bar he'd sing “something I'd never heard before. Or something by the Pet Shop Boys.”

I'd pay to see that.

MacGowan doesn’t give much away during our chat. But then the press he's had over the years would make anyone wary of interviews. His lifestyle would make Amy Winehouse wince in disapproval. His has been a life on the very edge.

So what’s the worst thing he's ever read about himself.

“That I'm an arrogant, violent psychopath,” he replies.

His has been an almost Biblical tale of death and disappointment. Yet, despite all his troubles, he finds the poetry in life, weaving daydreams for realists.

When I ask him what he thinks will be the best thing in Liverpool in 2009, he answers simply “Everton”.

But what does he, the man who wrote about the “measure of my dreams” actually dream of? “Immortality. Oh, I see what you mean,” he corrects himself. “I don't, or if I do I don't remember them.”

THE Pogues, supported by Amsterdam, play The Summer Pops at the Echo Arena Liverpool, on July 15.