Heart of a Punk Soul of a Rasta

Peter Doherty
HMV Institute Digbeth
14th May 2011

or

The Life and Times of Peter Doherty

In the life and times of Peter Doherty there's been far too much ink spilt, and a good 87.65% of it has been bollo. But this is because Peter Doherty is a micro economy. Year in year out he's fed the fat bellies and purses of an insatiable legion of money grubbers intent on the promotion of themselves rather than Peter Doherty. Take the article in this weeks failing flailing faltering and fucked NME entitled "Libertines - It's Over". To start with this must be at least the 42nd time that NME have run a story predicting, if not championing, the end of the Libertines, and each time its been done in a sad attempt to simply to shift copy.

The "story" itself revolves around the launch night (or premier) of the Libertines documentary "There are no Innocent Bystanders" which actually happened to be three bleeding weeks ago! Yes that's the NME for you, all the news, 24hrs a day, 7 days a weeks, only three weeks late. "Dieing on your arse" NME is the phrase that springs most readily to mind (but I would say that coz this is a FANZINE and in case you didn't know the only function of this FANZINE is to take the piss out the NME - no scrub that we don't have a function).

Seriously though, another story purporting to advise us of the end of The Libertines is about as necessary as a cock flavoured lollipop. Between the Libertines disintegration in 2004 and the reunion in 2010 the songs of the Libertines never went anywhere.

They didn't die. They weren't locked in a box or handed over to a naff tribute band to play. And many decent nights were had in the company of Babyshambles, Doherty, Barât and the Dirty Pretty Things. So what the f***! Also, in the five minutes since the HMV Forum last year and today we've already had both Carl and Peter doing solo tours playing Libertine stuff aplenty. So what the f**k again NME!

The Libertines "IT'S OVER" three weeks after the fact. Wow! What a non story. The title on the cover of NME should have read "Peter Doherty doesn't attend the launch of Libertines Documentary - PLEASE PLEASE buy our magazine PLEASE PLEASE LOVE US - Here's an old picture of Carl & Pete looking sweet". Because in the long stream of intangible human existence Peter & Carl will more than likely write together again, sometime, maybe, or not. So next time you run such a shitty story three weeks late NME, try a little harder, and at least have the dignity to mention that Peter Doherty is currently on tour, that way you'll at least give out the appearance of pushing Peter Doherty rather than yourself.

So here we are again. Not at the HMV Institute Birmingham, oh no. We're at the Digbeth Civic Hall. This is a world away from Birmingham. Well at least 500 yards anyway. We're in the venue listening to Chas and Dave. There are loads of bright young twinkling little whipper snappers here tonight, crammed up close to the barrier. Do they know who Chav and Rave are? Perhaps they do. In the life and times of Peter Doherty it seems he's always been able to enthuse a new batch of passionate wide eyed twinks with every turn of the page - whilst retaining a few poor old sods as well. But why are the kings of the sing-a-long Chas and Dave been blasted out around the venue largescale? Well it's a little subliminal message good people. Because tonight, what we are about to receive is a quintessential sing-a-long courtesy of Mr Doherty.

But first we had "Rare Roses" and one part of "Lipstick Melodies" to deal with. Both solo geezers both acoustic. The former was perhaps too young, too GREEN and probably not fully formed enough to be onstage here tonight. But given time and a bit of "learning" who knows - there was a touch of the "La's" going on in there somewhere - I think.

Up next was Alan Wass (pictured left & above). A different kettle of fish altogether. Front man with "Left Hand" and now with "Lipstick Melodies" and long time cohort of Doherty & Wolfe, there was no awkwardness here and hardly any sweat broken either. Instead what we got was a superabundance of chords, some harmonica and half an hour of dead time adeptly filled with some freewheelin folk & country blues. Strings were mashed, guitars were changed and a new track "True Love Flies" was given an airing (very Noel G). Before the set was closedown with "Hired Gun" which was co-written with Peter D.

Then around 8.55pm and without any ceremony whatsoever Peter Doherty strolled onstage with Gibson in hand and for the next hour and a half he and his guitar meandered. Peter meandered around like a trapped animal in unlaced boots circling round and round the stage between the mic and a carefully positioned rocking chair. While his guitar meandered and snaked through his back catalogue visiting all stations of the Doherty past. The Libertine destinations visited were: "What a Waster", "Don't Look Back into the Sun", "Time for Heroes", "Music when the Lights go out", "What Katy Did" and "Can't Stand me Now".

A couple of glittering ballet dancers in gold and black (come on you Wolves) joined Pete for "For Lovers", then flitted off and on from time to time in the set, dodging the beer and trying desperately to make up something cohesive as Doherty went off the beaten track with his acoustic improvisation. They looked slightly incongruous being so immaculate and pristine pirouetting around Pedro, who was decked out with all the sartorial elegance of Sancho Panza. (PS talking of Ballet dancers - The Stranglers had ballet dancers back in 1981 and yes they did get gobbed at)

"From Bollywood to Battersea" got an airing which was more than delightful to hear, don't think I've heard that live before (obviously some clever bastard will prove me wrong if that's not the case) and "East of Eden" saw the light of day too.

And from Grace/Wastelands there was "Last of the English Roses", "Arcady", "Sheepskin Tearaway". "Lady Don't Fall Backwards" and "Salome" (see clip) - the beer dodging dancers returned for "Salome", it was very nice but it wasn't in the same class as the real Salome. You see I'm so old I can actually remember her, it was Isabel Mestres wasn't it.

To be honest though, Peter did not look well tonight - but then again I looked like a bag of shit myself. There were a few moments when he was crumpled in his rocking chair that it looked as if he could possibly be consumed by his apparent exhaustion. But he carried on regardless. He also had trouble picking up the hundreds of items that were hurled at him, coz in Digbeth (in case you didn't know) people throw stuff.

Throwing stuff will only be out of fashion here when love is. More often than not its footwear that gets thrown - don't ask me why, it just is - but luckily Peter got some decent stuff lobbed at him tonight, scarves jewellery and fags, lots of fags.

Before the closedown there was enough time for Doherty to toast the success of QPR (who could easily be swapping places with Birmingham - this is football talk apparently) before two from Shambles era "Albion" (accompanied by Wass on harmonica) and finally "Fuck Forever" with a load of crowd surfing and several pairs of raised cold crooked fingers - An immediate implementation of the Saturday night curfew was applied as soon as the final chord chimed - The clampdown was permanent.

And so Peter Doherty continues, there was nothing new in the set tonight and so no product to sell other than himself. I guess Peter Doherty came to Digbeth tonight to show us exactly what he's spent the last ten years or so of his life creating. He belted out his songs and invariably had them belted out back at him. It was more a communion than a mere sing-a-long. Still these are quiet days in the life and times of Peter Doherty. Yes there are open ended drug matters and yes there are always folk who want to see Doherty side lined, curbed or simply "moved on". But disregarding these dicks these are quiet days indeed. Doherty is undoubtedly the greatest English songwriter of his generation, but he's also the closest thing to William Burroughs England is ever likely to possess. However he's viewed for me all that truly matters in the life and times of Peter Doherty is what is contained within the vinyl and the venue, the rest dear friends, is bubbles & BOLLO!