Sinead O’Connor and Shane MacGowan tribute concert announced
Artists were friends for years and collaborated on the single ‘Haunted’, which featured in 1986 film ‘Sid and Nancy’
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Your support makes all the difference.A special tribute concert to Sinéad O'Connor and The Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan will be held at New York City’s Carnegie Hall on 20 March.
Titled Sinéad & Shane, the one-night-only event will celebrate the lives and work of the Irish artists, who both died last year.
Irish singer Glen Hansard, David Gray, Dropkick Murphys, Cat Power and Amanda Palmer are among the musicians taking part, with more to be announced.
“Shane would really appreciate this tribute,” MacGowan’s widow, author and journalist Victoria Mary Clarke, told The Independent.
“He loved Carnegie Hall and he loved Sinead. It’s heartbreaking to think about them both being gone but good to think of them being together and representing the more authentic and soulful side of Irish music.
“In my opinion they were two of the most raw and passionate and powerful singers in the world but also two really great songwriters.”
O’Connor and MacGowan knew each other for years, first meeting in the Eighties. They recorded a song together, “Haunted”, which featured on the soundtrack to the 1986 biopic Sid and Nancy starring Gary Oldman.
She shot to global fame after the release of single “Nothing Compares 2 U”, a cover of the song by Prince, in 1990. During the course of her career, she released 10 studio albums and won a Brit Award for International Female Solo Artist.
Her memoir, Rememberings, was released in 2021.
MacGowan rose to fame as the frontman of Anglo-Irish band The Pogues, known for their melding of politically charged lyrics and a punk ethos with traditional Irish instrumentation.
His and O’Connor’s friendship had its ups and downs, including a fall-out after she reported MacGowan to the police for heroin use. He was arrested in 1999 at his home in north-west London and later charged with possession.
At the time, O’Connor said she called emergency services after discovering the singer collapsed on the floor of his flat.
“I love Shane,” the “Nothing Compares 2 U” artist said, “and it makes me angry to see him destroy himself selfishly in front of those who love him.”
MacGowan later credited O’Connor with ending his heroin abuse, even if he was “furious” with her at the time.
The duo reunited in 2007 when The Pogues played the RDS concert hall in Dublin, and O’Connor joined the band for a rendition of “Fairytale of New York”.
O’Connor died aged 56 in July 2023. MacGowan died in November, just weeks before what would have been his 66th birthday.
Thousands of mourners lined the streets to watch the funeral processions of both artists. MacGowan was laid to rest in a suitably rock’n’roll service at St Mary of the Rosary Church in Nenagh, Co Tipperary, in December.
Writing for The Independent last year, MacGowan’s widow, author and journalist Victoria Mary Clarke, recalled the moment she first met the irrepressible artist and paid tribute a “shy and charismatic” man.
Proceeds from the tribute concert will go to charity. As well as general admission, fans can also accesss VIP tickets, which are on sale now and priced between $300 to $20,000.
General tickets go on sale on 22 January.
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