THE LIBERTINES | LIVE REVIEW
The Motorpoint, Cardiff
Tue 26 Jan
Over their career The Libertines have followed the basic ‘Behind the Music’ story; band has nothing, band tries hard, band gets success, sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. Then the whole thing self-destructs and everyone cries.
Pete, Carl, John and Gary seem to have buried the hatchet and have embarked on a new musical path in their careers with their first studio album in 11 years, Anthems for Doomed Youth, being released late last year. Full of emotional baggage, the band started to play a number of festival sets, which led to the announcement of their first UK arena tour.
Supported by The Sherlocks and The Enemy, who both had decent sets, were a perfect to start to get the crowd warmed up. As the Motorpoint began to fill, a swell of drunken bodies began to swirl. As soon as the Libs walked onto the stage half empty plastic bottles of beer started to be pelted at the stage. With the audience chanting “Libertines! Libertines! Libertines!”, the crowd bobbed up and down slowly then exploded in a buzz of electricity when they played some of their best known songs like What Katie Did, Don’t Look Back Into The Sun and Time For Heroes.
Despite Petey slagging off the Cardiff audience half way through the saying “you Cardiff crowds are notorious for being shit”, you can’t help but love him anyway. He seems to effortlessly emote charisma without doing anything at all and surprisingly his voice is in the best shape in it has been in years. The overall production was of the gig was amazing. The massive light display and video projections, which can come off as a little naff, perfectly complemented their set and created an awestruck atmosphere.
After the encore, as the gig slowly screeched to an end, Pete picked up each mic stand and flung them into the audience, which was a perfect way to end an amazing set.
words and photos JAYDON MARTIN