4/5

 

Whether you’re team Pete or team Carl, there’s one thing all Libertines fans can agree on -they can be a difficult band to support.

We’ve had the highs: the rambunctious guerrilla gigs and the great songs, and then there’s been the lows: the no-shows, the arrests, the addictions.

Frenzied, poetic and chaotic, with a fantastic catalogue of music to boot, when the group acrimoniously disbanded in 2004, it seemed their legacy would forever be tarnished by the band's problems.

Even offshoot groups - Dirty Pretty Things (Carl and Gary), and Babyshambles (Pete), has done little to satisfy the die-hard Libertines fans, with each side lacking the creative input of the other.

So, when it was announced that the group would be reforming  in 2014 for London’s British Summertime Hyde Park, it was a gig not to be missed.

Would Pete and Carl still have the same homo-erotic chemistry in check? Would Gary and John once again become the innocent bystanders as the band imploded? What on earth would they play?

As you’d expect, they’re all a little bit older, a bit greyer and a tad paunchier. But Pete looks clean. 

Playing almost all of their hits including Time For Heroes, Can’t Stand Me Now, Don’t Look Back into  The Sun and Up the Bracket  - the crowd went wild, dancing, throwing bottles and surging forward.

In all, the performance from The Libertines was polished, which is where the problems lie. They were missing the raw, fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants sound they'd become famous for, instead turning in a performance which was formulaic, and dare I say, a bit paint by numbers.

There were a couple of moments when the gig had to be stopped - due to fools lighting flares in the middle of crowds, naked folks climbing the sound towers and crowd crushes. Nothing new there you’re probably thinking, it’s a Libertines gig after all, it’s going to be shambolic. Except, when you’ve got Pete Doherty of all people trying to calm the situation - well, the irony can’t be lost.

And then there’s the money. It’s been reported that each member of the band is getting £500,000 a piece for this reunion. Watching how they all interacted on the stage, I’d be naive if I said they’re doing this for the music. Or indeed the friendship.

The camaraderie that Pete and Carl shared in the early days of the band is not just lacking, but stilted, almost positively weird.

Nonetheless, having not seen them perform for almost ten years, I loved seeing them back on the stage. They just need to recapture that old Libertines spirit, they just need a "kick" up the bracket.