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Get Starting Point<\/span><\/p>\n A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The latest edition of the band may be more Irish than ever, said Jem Finer, the multi-instrumentalist who co-founded the group with MacGowan and Spider Stacy<\/a> in the early 1980s. To fill the space the larger-than-life MacGowan left behind, the Pogues will feature an expanded rotation of singers, including next-generation Irish songwriters Lisa O\u2019Neill, Daragh Lynch (of the band Lankum), and John Francis Flynn.<\/span><\/p>\n In fact, on a recent overseas phone call, Finer said the band wasn\u2019t formed to play only Irish music. He and Stacy \u2013 both Englishmen \u2013 met MacGowan when they were all living in the post-punk industrial landscape of King\u2019s Cross, London. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe had all sorts of different influences from the start, all the different cultures that were there \u2013 Irish, Turkish, Greek, English, Welsh, Spanish, American,\u201d Finer said. <\/span><\/p>\n MacGowan, who answered to the alias \u201cShane O\u2019Hooligan\u201d in his early years on the punk scene, \u201cwas very much influenced by not just his Irish background but all these other things, and where we lived. There\u2019s all these songs that could only have been written in London,\u201d Finer added.<\/span><\/p>\n Finer, who plays several instruments, including banjo, mandola (a larger mandolin), and hurdy-gurdy, is a trained computer scientist who in recent years has invested himself in high-concept musical installations. His composition \u201cLongplayer,\u201d<\/a> which debuted on the first day of the new millennium, is designed to last 1000 years without repeating. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cActually it\u2019s something really nice now, having all these Irish musicians with us,\u201d Finer said. \u201cOver the years I\u2019ve become more and more interested in traditional Irish tunes and stories.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n What truly bonded the Pogues\u2019 original members in the early years, Finer said, was their shared sense of being outsiders. While MacGowan was an Irish lad growing up in England, Finer was the son of a Jewish father.<\/span><\/p>\n That exposed him to \u201call the attendant stuff you get as a kid in a slightly bigoted society,\u201d he said. \u201cIn a sense, we all had our own experiences of knowing what it\u2019s like to be not fully accepted. And that\u2019s very much what a lot of the band\u2019s music and songs reflect.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not a glorification of anything abject, but more a celebration of the human spirit, I\u2019d say,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n Lisa O\u2019Neill, one of the singers joining the Pogues this weekend, is a highly touted songwriter who grew up in a small village in County Cavan. In December of 2023, she may have entered your social media feed when she and Glen Hansard sang a moving rendition of the Pogues classic \u201cFairytale of New York\u201d at MacGowan\u2019s funeral service, performing inside a packed Catholic church in the Tipperary town where he spent some of his earliest years.<\/span><\/p>\n She got her first break back in 2011, when David Gray invited her to be an opening act on his U.S. tour. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe first show was in Boston, and it was snowing,\u201d she recalled, speaking on the phone from her home in Dublin. \u201cWe got to Boston and it felt like I was walking around in a movie. Just the stuff of dreams, you know?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Like most of her peers, she grew up on the Pogues\u2019 music. Being invited to sing with them is \u201cone of the most exciting things that\u2019s ever happened in my career,\u201d she said. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI always think Shane has written himself into an eternal life,\u201d she added. (O\u2019Neill will also perform an opening set on Sunday).<\/span><\/p>\n While the Pogues\u2019 most beloved songs will always be associated with MacGowan\u2019s lyrical storytelling, Finer co-wrote several tracks with the singer, including \u201cFairytale,\u201d and he was primarily responsible for most of the band\u2019s abundance of instrumental tracks. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe were always collaborating, sitting down and showing each other what we\u2019d been writing, exchanging ideas and so on,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n When some of Ireland\u2019s biggest traditional stars \u2013 the Chieftains, the Dubliners \u2013 embraced the Pogues, it was a validation. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t surprised that some people didn\u2019t like [what we were doing] because they felt we were being disrespectful,\u201d Finer said. On the other hand, he knew there would be others \u201cwho would understand that tradition sometimes needs a kind of slashing and burning to move on, to keep it fertile and reinventing itself.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n But by the early 1990s, MacGowan\u2019s well-documented struggles with alcohol and drugs were enough to get him booted from the band he co-founded. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHe was what he was,\u201d said Finer. \u201cYeah, he had his problems, but I think they\u2019ve been overplayed a lot by the press.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n MacGowan and the Pogues eventually reunited in 2001. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThankfully, we found we could work together again,\u201d Finer said. \u201cWe all ended up on the very best of terms.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHe was a dear friend, and he wrote the most brilliant lyrics I\u2019ve ever heard,\u201d he added. \u201cTo count him as a friend and work with him was an amazing thing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n SEISI\u00daN<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n With Dropkick Murphys, the Hold Steady, Stiff Little Fingers and more (Saturday, Sept. 6) and the Pogues, Glen Hansard, the Waterboys and more (Sunday, Sept, 7). At the Stage of Suffolk Downs, 525 William F. McClellan Highway, Boston, 2 p.m. (both days). Tickets: $75 and up. stageatsuffolkdowns.com<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n James Sullivan can be reached at <\/i>jamesgsullivan@gmail.com<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n