Founded in King’s Cross in 1982, the band behind “Fairytale of New York” close their December with a second London night at the Forum in Kentish Town.
The Pogues, the band behind “Fairytale of New York”, play their second London night of the winter at O2 Forum Kentish Town on Tuesday 15 December 2026. North London is where they played their first gig, in 1982.
That gig was at the Pindar of Wakefield, under the name Pogue Mahone, a phrase from Joyce’s Ulysses that anglicises the Irish for ‘kiss my arse’. Complaints about the name on national radio gave them the shorter one.
Shane MacGowan wrote the songs, with Spider Stacy on tin whistle and Jem Finer on banjo. Elvis Costello produced Rum Sodomy & the Lash in 1985. MacGowan’s duet with Kirsty MacColl reached number two at Christmas 1987.
MacGowan died in November 2023. Stacy, Finer and James Fearnley re-formed the band in 2024. In 2025 they marked forty years of Rum Sodomy & the Lash across Britain, Ireland and North America.
The Forum opened as an Art Deco cinema in December 1934 and became a music venue in 1985 as the Town & Country Club. The box set Pogues 30 includes a live recording from the Forum in December 1991, with Joe Strummer singing in MacGowan’s place.