Flick through a newspaper, and
their pages will be littered with the usual suspects; political scandals,
alleged love children and athletes being busted. But sometimes, we forget about
a figure whose spiralling life sometimes over-shadows his ‘next Oscar Wilde’
status, breaking onto the scene ten years ago.
An Ex-Libertine: who shared a
violent and failed engagement to one of the most beautifully coked-up
supermodels of our time. Throw in a jail sentence and dealing with a death,
occurring from the same substance that keeps his fire alight: you’ve reached
thechaos jackpot. So how come, after the rehab stints, the accidental child
and a hollowing drug addiction; is Peter Doherty still standing?
Dirty Pete and his band of
Shambles may have a record against them for not exactly giving the correct
‘Delivery’ when it comes to shows. With Doherty’s priority of substance not
giving the same effect of his fans euphoria. But it’s fair to say, that
Babyshambles really proved what they were made of on September 5th,
at the O2 Academy in Newcastle.
Fresh faced and poised for
action; Pete’s second band, after the infamous Libertines, rallied through
their bouncing set list of songs from the past three albums. Old favourites
such as ‘Delivery’, ‘Killamangiro’ and ‘8 Dead Boys’ saw the masculine
orientated crowd bouncing from bar to stage and back to front. Singles from new
album ‘Sequel to the Prequel’ such as ‘Farmer’s Daughter’ and ‘Fall from Grace’
went down a storm, with sweaty bodies gently entwining around each other.
A new lease of life seemed to
radiate through Doherty as he sang a short (yet slurred) rendition of
Lindisfarne’s classic ‘Fog on the Tyne’, playing on his North East Background, before
pelting himself into the adrenaline fuelled crowd. Madness: with no control.
Doherty’s devoted fans scratched their way through the pit to caress any part
of Pete that they could get their sweaty palms on. One lucky kid threw his
phone in front of him screaming “Pete take a selfie!” Doherty giving him a boyishly
cheesy grin sent him, and the rest of the pit wild with excitement.
Doherty managed to escape the
clutches of his adolescent fan-girls hatless and with two less shoes five
minutes later, leaving a trail of disbelief in his wake, not to mention a mass-pile
on! Still, his spirits hadn’t seemed to
dampen after his soft-core attack. A laugh of pure happiness left Doherty’s
lips as he and Babyshambles created a ear-defining roar as their set came to a rowdy
close with a chorus of ‘Fuck forever, if you don’t mind’.
A night full of surprises: a
salute to Babyshambles for their phenomenal performance. The poet, whose drug-incrusted mind spouts
oozy, romantic poems in the form of songs, is back; and he’ll not be looking
back into the sun anytime soon. Time will tell, but there’s nowhere for Doherty
to go but up!
Babyshambles’s highly-rated new album ‘Sequel
to the Prequel’ is available to buy in all good record stores, and available
for digital download now.
