ODD THAT, OF ALL GROUPS, The Pogues -they of the bad teeth 24-hour lock-ins and tea-tray headaches - have sidled up alongside Wizzard and Slade as the spirit of Christmas. This is the second of a three-night festive residency at Brixton, like the one they did in 2001. There are bauble-strewn trees either side of the stage and, before the evening is out, fake snow falls down from the rafters as thatsong - let's face it, the greatest Christmas song ever written - is delivered in all its glory. 

But before heaven, Hosannah and baby Jesus, we're going straight to hell. Or, literally, The Clash's "Straight To Hell ", which heralds their entrance (doubtless a salute to tomorrow's second anniversary of Joe Strummer's death). As anybody who suffered Shane MacGowan's heartbreaking turn on Frank Skinner's chat show a few weeks earlier will already know, he's looked better. But for all his frequent disappearances stage left and slurry song intros, he's also looked worse. The main thing is, bejaysus, he can still sing. 

The bulk of the set is plucked from their inseparably excellent twin masterpieces: 1985's Rum, Sodomy & The Lash and 1987's more populist If I Should Fall From Grace With God. The presence of Cait O'Riordan increases the audience's nostalgia for the former, not on bass (as some hoped) but here to sing "I'm A Man You Don't Meet Every Day" with a bawdy swagger that makes its cunning gender subversion all the more unusual. So, too, "The Old Main Drag" - that MacGowan can not only write such a prosaic rumination on the misery of life as a London rent boy, but also inspire several hundred, if not thousand, beered-up, largely straight (it's safe to guess) thirty/fortysomething lads and lassies to sing along in unison is surely a mark of his genius. 

And likewise that song, "Fairytale Of New York", which, after the hoarse "FARAWAY!" fury of "Sally MacLennane" and neighbour-slamming bedlam of "The Irish Rover", presents a poignant triple whammy- it's four years since Kirsty MacColl died, there are people collecting for her mother's Justice For Kirsty appeal in the foyer (to bring her "murderer" to trial), and here to co-sing it is O'Riordan, for whom the song was written in the first place. There's a momentary anti-climax when Shane bodges the intro, but after that we're lost in its overwhelming emotional vortex: love, hate and the sober reality of having wasted one's life in a blur of booze, It's MacColl's sentimental bequest, but it'll probably be MacGowan's epitaph. I wonder how many here tonight fear the same? Or how many will recoil in disgust three days later when EastEnders'Shane Ritchie mauls the song on primetime BBC1? Or,, indeed, how many raised a glass over the turkey and said to MacGowan - born 25 December, 1957 - 'Happy Birthday) Pray God it really isn't his last.