Photo by Erica Bruce

Another March, another run of sold-out Pogues shows at the 9:30 Club. Despite the propitious occasion of St. Patrick’s Day — the equinox ’round which the graying-but-still-preeminent purveyors of Emerald Isle folk-punk (funk?) book their East Coast tours in recent years — Tuesday night’s hootenanny was no more gleefully shitfaced than their 9:30 gig from last year on March 9. In fact, it was arguably less so: Frontman Shane MacGowan seemed more lucid than the last time he stumbled through town, and his snarled vocals more intelligible. And the other seven active-duty Pogues? Affable, enthusiastic professionals all — especially Spider Stacy, the group’s tin whistler and fill-in frontman who who bashed a metal tray against his head whenever additional percussion was required. The mid-show appearance of a two-man horn section gave a warm shading to several unabashedly sentimental tunes, but especially a late-in-the-game “Rainy Night in SoHo.”

Though The Pogues released a sterling five-disc set of archival material last year, they’ve gone well past a decade now without an album of new music. They shuffled roughly a third of their 23-song survey of (mostly) Thatcher-era Celt-punk from their last 9:30 residency, offering more variety than expected — and surely more than the faithful required — while remaining overwhelmingly beholden to their first trio of albums, circa 1984-8. Hey, they’re basically the world’s greatest wedding band at this point, and they know what their people want. And so: “Streams of Whiskey”? Right out of the gate, as usual. “Turkish Song of the Damned”? But of course. “Sally MacLennane”? What, are you still drunk? Check, check, and check.