Nadine Shah, Lankum's Darragh Lynch, Lisa O'Neill among guest vocalists joining The Pogues for their first UK headline tour in 13 years

Nadine Shah, Darragh Lynch, Lisa O'Neill

(Image credit: Lorne Thomson/Redferns | Gus Stewart/Redferns | Debbie Hickey/Getty Images)

Nadine Shah, Lankum's Darragh Lynch, Lisa O'Neill are among the guest vocalists who will be joining The Pogues for their UK headline tour in May.

Along with John Francis Flynn and Iona Zajac, the trio will be joining Pogues members Spider Stacv, James Fearnley and and Jem Finer for the six-date tour celebrating 40 years of the London-Irish ban'd classic Rum Sodomy & the Lash album.

These will be the band's first dates since the death of former frontman Shane MacGowan.

The Elvis Costello-produced Rum Sodomy & the Lash was released on August 5, 1985, and sold 100,000 copies in the UK, peaking at number 13 on the album chart. It contains the singles A Pair Of Brown Eyes, Sally MacLennane and Dirty Old Town alongside fan favourites such as The Old Main Drag and The Sick Bed of Cúchulainn.

Costello later described his work on the record as his attempt to capture The Pogues “in their dilapidated glory before some more professional producer fucked them up.”

“He was really very good at his job,” says James Fearnliy in a new interview in the new issue of Classic Rock magazine. “It sounds brilliant and stands up to time. He really did well with Shane’s voice.

“There was a certain amount of competition between myself and Elvis because I was trying to think of things before he did,” he adds. “If he had an idea for doing a particular overdub, I got shirty with him because he’d just pick up a guitar and go into the studio and do it. I said, We’re the band, you’re the producer.”

The Pogues Rum, Sodomy & The Lash tour 2025

May 01: Leeds O2 Academy
May 02: Birmingham O2 Academy
May 03: London O2 Academy Brixton
May 06: Glasgow Barrowland
May 07: Manchester O2 Apollo
May 08: Newcastle O2 City Hall

Tickets are on sale here.

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A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.