Libertines

The night began with a trio of support acts comprised of bands from Peter Doherty’s own label Strap Originals. It is a very tight schedule with short five-minute changeover periods between the artists which isn’t helped by the doors opening quite late at 7pm and the first band due on at 7:20pm.  

First up are Nottingham’s Vona Vella, who are Izzy Davis and Dan Cunningham, a pair of harmonious singer songwriters who turn up as four piece tonight. They trade vocals over lively guitar driven melodies with a mishmash of styles but are generally mellow and summary, very Lloyd Cole, and highly likable. They come over as a group of mates having a great time. They’re possibly too nice and I’m not sure where they take this act from here. 

Up next are Real Farmer, a band from Groningen in the Netherlands. Their lead singer walks on stage, promptly throws away his mic stand, jumps in the air a few times and spits. Ugh. Then he starts pacing up and down. This is just his warm-up I think. Then...  It’s Play Dead! Or Killing Joke maybe. This is more my thing, spitting apart.

Finally, we have Reverend and the Makers guitarist Ed Cosens who gets a few songs in while the roadies are busy resetting the stage behind him for the Libertines. He’s missed his first assigned slot and now he gets to play a mere three acoustic numbers while fighting a battle against a now restless crowd.

Then… just as we’re expecting the main event to start rather than the whole band, we get just the one Libertine as Pete Doherty strolls on to the stage alone and introduces a poet he allegedly found on Upper Parliament Street while walking his dog last night. I think it’s fair to say that said poet goes down a bit mixed.

Fifteen minutes later Doherty is back, now in his raincoat but this time with the rest of the band. Then things really took off ‘Up The Bracket’ style as they opened with a classic that is now amazingly 22 years old.

Doherty spends most of the night loitering to one side as Carl Barat, kitted out in a trilby hat and blazer, commands things from centre stage. Everyone took a turn up front though with both drummer Gary Powell and Barat taking turns on the piano and bassist John Hassall taking a turn on vocals. 

 

The set was a mix of the classics and the brand new with plenty played from their new album ‘All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade’ in a night that was riotous but retrained too. These days you are assured that the Libertines will not only turn up to play but they'll be on time and they’ll play through to the night’s conclusion rather than being prone to curtailing things at any moment.

After an eighteen song set that finished with ‘Can’t Stand Me Now’ the band returned for a long encore of a further seven songs that Doherty even took his coat off for. This included ‘Gunga Din’, which was one of only two included from their third album 2015’s ‘Anthems for Doomed Youth’, ‘Time For Heroes’ from album one and to round things off standalone single ‘Don’t Look Back Into The Sun’.

(Monday 21^st October)