Important Gigs in My Life # 9 Pete Doherty - Newcastle Carling Academy 17th May 2011

While we're on the subject of Fat White Family and heroin chic, here's one of their antecedents and a brief account of going to see him eight years back. One of my regrets was never getting to see The Libertines, particularly in their glorious early days. Doherty was a few years down the line from there  at the time I finally got to see him. by now he seemed rather more ragged than glorious having gone through the Sun, Kate Moss and heroin experiences that made him a known name nationally but rather took the shine off his mystique and poetic edge casting him now as a rather more pathetic than inspiring figure.

I came home from work with no intentions of seeing him. The Carling Academy in Newcastle lies fifty yards down the street from my flat and I saw his name above the venue. When I got home I called my sister who had seen him and The Libertines on several occasions. I asked her whether I should go and her reply was a definite affirmative. Well you've got to do as your sister advises really so I walked down there. There were tickets on the door and a fair bit of space in the venue. I think he was probably viewed as a bit of a hit and miss project by others round about this point and not just by me. Somebody whose best days were probably behind him.

He played alone. No band, just himself an electric guitar and his customary hat. Oh and a ballerina pirouetting behind him for some of the set. He was quite fabulous. Awe inspiring. Sometimes you have to see someone in the flesh to really detach the hype from the myth and really experience the genuine raw talent that lies beneath. Because Doherty had it in spades.

He kept the audience in the palm of his hand. I got a real sense of the reality about his vision of Albion having genuine fleshy substance. I also got a feeling that he had a real audience and a bond with them that was quite tangible.

He played some Libertines songs. He played some of his own songs. and they were both cut very much from the same cloth. I can't remember very many specifics just the sense that I felt that I was in the company of a genuinely unique talent.

I seem to recall that a few days later he was subject to yet another police drugs bust. I saw him just in time. He still tours and puts out records, having made it to forty, and though I'm not desperately bothered about seeing him again I'm supremely glad that I did that night.