A thought about Irish cliches on St. Paddy's day

The good news is that Shane MacGowan showed up this year when I went to see the show last night at Roseland in NYC. (In other good news, Billy Bragg's opening set was tight, sparkling and enjoyable - particularly his duet with Kate Nash). Though he was intoxicated, and fell heavily to the stage after spinning between Philip Chevron and Jem Finer, Shane MacGowan seemed healthier than on many occasions in the past, and he still is able to find the lyrics to every song he sings somewhere in that pickled brain.

Which leads me to thoughts on the Irish cliche. For years, the Irish have had to overcome the "stage Irish" image that has been prevalent since the 17th century - poor, drunken, happy, poetic, drunken, funny, musical, maudlin, drunken, lovable, gullible, unreliable, drunken... In this century, the roles of Barry Fitzgerald in a plenitude of films was that of the irascible tipsy Irishmen.

In fact, in their prime, the Pogues were often accused of reviving the stereotype of the drunken Irishman as Shane MacGowan lurched about the stage, and vomited during interviews. They dismissed the idea readily, and with good cause. They were reviving Irish traditionalism, combined with a sharp-edged punkiness, but MacGowan's grasp of literature (Irish and otherwise), Celtic myth, and modern politics, made his songs amazingly dangerous tinctures of poetry and populism.

That's changed.

Last night may well have been my last Pogues show. The band themselves, and their volatile leader is not the reason, though I must say that last night was the first time I felt that they were all going through the motions, and not happily so. Who could deny them the ability to make a little cash late in their careers.

But with MacGowan incapable of creating anything new, the band hashes through the same twenty-five songs like a sorry rock and roll revival band.

Then there's the crowd. I wasn't the only member of the audience in my sixth decade, but I can assure you we were not in legion. Most of the fans were thirty and forty somethings who grew acquainted with the Pogues through the recordings long after the band had broken up in their first incarnation.

And a majority of the fans seemed to be less interested in the music (though most know the lyrics well enough to belt out a chorus at the top of their lungs), and more interested in deifying MacGowan and emulating his disease, alcoholism. In fact, there seems to be a game played at these concerts - who can get drunker than Shane.

As fans carried unstable fistfuls of plastic cups filled with beer between bar and buddies, they plowed through onlookers, glassy-eyed, stumbling and the picture of an Irish cliche. I witnessed two fights, gallons of spilt brew, and one beautiful young woman who ambled toward the bar, incoherent, with one of her lovely breasts inadvertently dangling from her spaghetti-strapped dress.

During the Bragg set, the crowd was polite, though there were pockets of Pogues fan consuming fuel for the main event. Up front, near where I was standing, as soon as the much began, the first eight rows turned into the expected scrum. What none of us expected was the rush toward the stage by drunken louts from the rear of the house, toward the stage, knocking aside any who might keep them from jigging in front of their beloved, toothless, poet-king of intoxication, Shane MacGowan.

The abuse of alcohol at the show was really frightening (considering many of these idiots were going to climb behind the wheel for drives back to Jersey, Connecticut and beyond). The goal of drinking to oblivion by a good portion of the audience made it, at minimal, uncomfortable for the rest of us, who would have been happy with a Guinness or two, a chorus of "And a rovin' a rovin' a rovin' I'll go," and a glimpse of a legendary band in their decline. Instead, we spent the evening sidestepping lurching beer zombies intent on perpetuating an Irish cliche.

If it sounds like fun to you, there's always St. Paddy's day today - the annual vestige of Celtic shame.