Paris, 14/1/08

Difficult night at the Olympia for Peter and the guys. The gig was plagued by technical problems from start to end. Peter did not put on a brave face and left the hall in a huff.

At the moment we have a review from metrofrance, a report from NME.com and some more reports from our friends (thanks to all of you).

"A lot of tech problems (amp, mic, backline...)" says Easyolii "Peter also tried to sing along She Loves You with the crowd, but nobody seemed to know the lyrics… Average gig. It’s a shame that they don’t change more than this their setlist from a night to another. Anyway the band seemed to be in good mood".

"Last night was a total anti-climax" says Anjali "[...] then BS finally walked on and started "Carry on up the morning", the crowd was extatic, I had a good view so all was well... for about 20 seconds. Halfway through the first line Pete stopped the song and claimed he couldn't hear a thing. Technicians started running around in panic, fixing what could be fixed, but in the end Pete said they couldn't play "Carry on" and they charged into "Delivery" instead. For about 1 minute. In the first line of the chorus Pete stopped the song and said he couldn't hear Mik. Cue more panic, more fixing. Then they started "Delivery" again. but then the momentum was kind of lost and it took them about 4 songs to get into it properly. It was "Side if the road" if memory serves, and Pete said "The soundcheck is over now!". But all was not totally fixed and even if they could go on with the gig without stopping any more songs in the middle of them, you could hear little quirks and it was kind of unnerving. Drew and Mik and Adam were their usual self-contained selves but Pete was obviously pissed off and was randomly kicking into things like amps in frustration. He even repeatedly smashed his microphone on the floor at some point. On top of it all, the security were being total arseholes and didn't let us take pictures at all or smoke, it was fucking concentration camp. When they caught people they didn't just tell them to stop they were chucking them out of the building!!! [...] In the end they played "What Katie did", "Albion", "There she goes", which I'm happy about as they're my favourites. The best crowd reaction was for "You talk", "Fuck forever" and "I wish". [...] At the end of the main set, Pete turned round, grabbed his coat and hat that he had left on Adam's kit, put them on, and walked off. It was obvious that he wouldn't come back. And he didn't. The crowd was left rather understandably dejected".

Plus: a series of beautiful photos from Oliver Peel on Flickr.

Setlist from easyolii: Carry on up the morning (aborted), Delivery, Beg steal or borrow, Pretty sue, Baddies boogie, Unstookietitled, Side of the road, Unbilotitled, new song, Killamangiro, There she goes, You talk, Albion, Back from the dead, I wish, What Katie did, Pipedown, Fuck forever.

Warning: it's confirmed that the Lyon gig has been postponed to 5 February and Babyshambles are coming back to UK (Peter has a hearing in court). The tour will be resumed on 19 Jan in Luxembourg.