They were friends in life, and after departing this veil of tears within four months of each other, they’ll be honored jointly in death: just after St. Patrick’s Day, New York City’s Carnegie Hall will play host to a tribute concert for Sinead O’Connor and Shane MacGowan.
The concert, which has been given the highly appropriate title of "Sinéad & Shane at Carnegie Hall," is scheduled to take place on March 20 and will offer a diverse bill of past collaborators and friends of O’Connor and MacGowan.
Sinead O'Connor and Shane MacGowan, who both passed in 2023, recorded a duet on MacGowan's first solo album.
Among the artists currently scheduled to perform during the concert are Dropkick Murphys, Kat Edmonson, Gordon Gano of Violent Femmes, David Gray, Glen Hansard, Eugene Hütz (Gogol Bordello), Bettye LaVette, the Mountain Goats, Amanda Palmer, Cat Power, and the Resistance Revival Chorus.
Hansard went viral in the wake of MacGowan’s funeral, where he led the assembled masses in a version of the Pogues’ and Kirsty MacColl’s iconic holiday hit, “Fairytale of New York.” Whether or not he’ll do the same at “Sinead & Shane at Carnegie Hall,” however, remains to be seen, as there’s obviously no semblance of a set list as of this writing.
The relationship between O’Connor and MacGowan was one of friendship, but they also had a musical collaboration as well, duetting on a re-recording of a Pogues song, “Haunted,” that was originally recorded by the band for the soundtrack of Sid & Nancy. The O’Connor / MacGowan version can be found on The Snake, an album by Shane MacGowan and the Popes.
“The producers were freaking out because Shane was nodding out on smack in between the verses,” O’Connor was quoted as saying in MacGowan’s biography, A Furious Devotion: The Life of Shane MacGowan, by Richard Balls. “I was singing my verse and they didn’t believe he was going to wake up, and neither did I.”
MacGowan did, in fact, wake up, of course, but his devotion to heroin continued unabated, a situation which ultimately led to O’Connor calling the police on MacGowan when she found him snorting the drug in his London flat, resulting in his arrest.
“I love Shane,” said O’Connor. “And it makes me angry to see him destroy himself selfishly in front of those who love him.”
Several years later, MacGowan was asked if the incident ended his relationship with O’Connor.
“No, but it ended my relationship with heroin,” he replied. “I’m not recommending to people that they should rat their friends out to the police, you know what I mean? At the time I was furious, obviously, but I’m actually very grateful to her now.”
