The Libertines leaned into their mythos of old-timey English romanticism when Vera Lynn’s ‘Well Meet Again’ and ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’ opened the curtain to their previous visits to the academy in 2015 and 2019. This time it’s quite different – and distinctly un-British – as Creed Bratton from the US version of The Office grabs a microphone and intros the band. It’s a surreal moment, particularly considering that Bratton is required to tell a mostly baffled audience who he is in the first place.
The Libertines of 2024 march on to the stage; a sharp looking Carl Barat is suited and booted with shirt, tie and fedora while the more louche Pete Doherty’s wears a slightly open suit directly atop his middle-age bulk. Following the release of April’s All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade, they also come adorned with an array of fresh tunes. The group’s turbulent early biography is of course well known, and Barat has described even the apparent renaissance of third album Anthems For Doomed Youth as “born of complexity.” Thus, it appears that this present day incarnation – as per the allusion of the new album’s title – is the first to truly exist within a harmonious period of calm.
It’s a run of seven songs from the tempestuous salad days of 2002-04 that get The Libertines swiftly moving through the gears. The single strum chorus breakdown of a swinging ‘What Became of the Likely Lads’ provides the night’s first sing a long moment. ‘The Boys in the Band’ is the first instance of Doherty and Barat performing a Lennon-McCartney-esque sharing of a microphone. Doherty and Barat’s recurrent fascination for World War One is briefly manifest when the latter sings an impromptu ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ in introduction to the swaying “Shoop, Shoop” singalong of ‘What Katie Did.’
Energetic drummer Gary Powell – clad in a Palestine football jersey – machine guns a lengthy solo spot which then segues into a reworked version of ‘The Good Old Days’; we have an extended verse with additional lyrics; one of the Libs’ standout lyrics “If you lost your faith in love and music, the end won’t be long” appears not once but twice, and the song later breaks down into a sparse, drum-led shuffle.
As ever with the Libertines, their live shows are possessed of an idiosyncratic, ramshackle charm, the scrappy nature of which would perhaps only convince those already onside with their redoubtable songwriting canon. And it’s the songs that are truly the band’s strength. 2002’s ‘Up The Bracket’ – an immediate pop-rock melody amidst a surging rush of guitars – is early Libertines at their best. In similarly melodic vein, ‘Vertigo’ propels forward on Doherty’s chunky bar chords and the unpolish of Barat’s frenetically scuzzy leads.
To their credit, the band’s last two albums have seen an evolved musicality at odds with their early modus operandi of gleaming melodies amidst scruffy guitar sounds. New song ‘Shiver’ has Barat at the piano while an extra musician delivers some cleaner guitar noise. The hearty audience contribution is evidence that, impressively, the six-month-old lyrics have already absorbed their way into fans’ affections. ‘Night of the Hunter’ – the intro featuring quotes from its namesake film of 1955 – is effectively haunting and another from Esplanade to reveal that the Doherty/Barat songwriting chops are still in fine shape.
Naturally, though, it’s the older favourites that produce the greatest reaction. The shared lead vocals of a dynamic ‘Death on the Stairs’ highlights the difference between Barat’s sturdy tenor and Doherty’s increasingly effete warble. ‘Music When The Lights Go Out’ – released at the apparent nadir of Doherty/Barat relations in 2004 – has grown beautifully as a lament of friendship’s end and a starkly emotional singalong.
A raucous ‘Horrowshow’ reveals the moment where the Libertines found the perfect nexus between melodic indie and unhinged punk. And there’s always something enthralling in roughly 1,500 people elevating Doherty’s voice by singing “The world kicked back a lot fuckin’ harder now” during ‘Can’t Stand Me Now.’
The fact that The Libertines rifle through their songs with as good as zero time for onstage badinage delivers the happy reality of a jam-packed set of 24 tunes. Even the encore stretches to eight songs. The unusual sight of skinsman Powell on piano and vocal duties during ‘Man with the Melody’ has the four band members charmingly huddled in one corner of the stage. ‘Gunga Din’ the only song here from Anthems is truly a song of two halves; the plodding cod-reggae of the verse gives way to a spirited chorus singalong.
Lyrically and melodically, ‘Time For Heroes’ my well be Doherty and Barat’s finest moment and it appears to mark the point where live audiences promptly go bananas; a couple of punters surf atop the crowd and event staff soon dispatch them to the sidelines. Debut single ‘What A Waster’ makes a welcome appearance and Doherty sings the line “What a fuckin’ div” with such relish it’s almost as if he is chastising his former miscreant self. A final opportunity for the crowd to lose it arrives after a massive drum build and Barat’s scintillating pick scrape launches itself into the iconic guitar riff of ‘Don’t Look Back into the Sun.’
Over twenty years since their initial blitz through fame, acrimony and separation, The Libertines have, it seems, finally found stability. As long as Doherty and Barat’s songwriting partnership endures, they will have a home playing their songs to1,500 adoring fans in venues like this.
Scott Hammond
Photo by Ed Cooke
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