7th of December at Albert Hall<\/p>\n
7.5\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s 21:30, and quips about whether Peter Doherty will even appear have become legitimate concerns. His support, Jack Jones of Welsh band Trampolene, started his set of hilariously surreal spoken poetry (topics ranging from ketamine to Poundland) by reassuring fans that Peter was here, in a not-so-subtle reference to the Libertines frontman\u2019s infamously unreliable past. Regardless, the crowd is restless.<\/p>\n Doherty eventually appears and one thing\u2019s certain: he\u2019s drunk. As he stumbles to the microphone and begins mumbling acoustic \u2018She Is Far\u2019 from latest album Hamburg Demonstrations<\/em>, one fan exclaims, \u201cexactly how I like him!\u201d. This is the unique appeal Doherty has: fans don\u2019t want him sober and totally coherent \u2013 they want a performance, and Doherty, launching into fan-favourite \u2018Albion\u2019 and joined by his band (including Jones and Babyshambles bassist Drew McConnell), is happy to oblige.<\/p>\n Excluding one unfinished anecdote, he doesn\u2019t talk to the\u00a0audience, instead joking with each band-member, attempting to play glockenspiel (used spectacularly in \u2018I Don\u2019t Love Anyone\u2019), drumkit (playful in \u2018The Whole World Is Our Playground\u2019) and violin to various degrees of success. Jones comes across as the proud son vying for a father\u2019s approval and the sense of comradeship within his entourage is obvious.<\/p>\n Libertines song \u2018You\u2019re My Waterloo\u2019 is a real highlight. A beautiful song anyway, but in this dimly lit, intimate venue it feels ethereal. \u2018Hell to Pay at the Gates of Heaven\u2019, a contrastingly upbeat tribute to the Bataclan attack victims is one of Doherty\u2019s strongest performances of the night. Between his own songs, Doherty causes fervour, teasing the opening of classic \u2018What Katie Did\u2019 and covering multiple tracks, notably a fantastic medley intertwining The Velvet Underground\u2019s \u2018Ride into the Sun\u2019 and Oasis\u2019 \u2018Don\u2019t Look Back in Anger\u2019. A two-line cover, startlingly, is of 50 Cent\u2019s ‘P.I.M.P.’<\/p>\n Occasionally, the noodling threatens to kill the mood, but this danger is quickly extinguished as an encore featuring \u2018Black Boy Lane\u2019 and \u2018Up the Bracket\u2019 causes all hell to break loose as a mosh pit forms. The evening concludes with an intense, unintentionally acapella version of \u2018Fuck Forever\u2019 \u2013 Albert Hall\u2019s curfew had been reached \u2013 but Doherty, clearly delighted with a brilliant crowd, has one more surprise, as he crowd-surfs in a throwback to the \u2018good old days\u2019 of early Libertines gigs.<\/p>\n Was Doherty in control throughout? Possibly. This was a messy, chaotic, unstructured gig, no more evident than when he decided to throw his mic stand into the crowd, initiating a minor brawl for memorabilia. It was unnecessary, childish, potentially dangerous and something we don\u2019t see enough of anymore in an age of health and safety. This is rock \u2018n\u2019 roll. And nobody is more ingrained into its spirit than Peter Doherty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Messy, chaotic, dangerous, and something we don\u2019t see enough of anymore: It\u2019s classic Peter Doherty<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":535,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[9161,6547,12220,6548,121,6549,14989],"coauthors":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19507"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/535"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19507\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19507"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=19507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}