This is a site dedicated to the Libertines and their offspring. News, interviews, reviews, articles, pictures, videos and exclusives right here from the troubled world of the Babyshambles and Dirty Pretty Things (and, why not, Yeti).

1/28/2008

Wien konzert


Something on the run, the gig was "super", according to this report.
Translation by Grete:

Whoever came to Wiener Arena with firm expectations to be able to accompany the useless, gossip column fodder a little along his way to deadly overdose, made a huge fool of themselves / were dead wrong. Not that Pete Doherty isn’t a weird man whose attraction to illegal substances is obvious to anyone; however it is too early to tell? In short: the concert was amazing.The front man of Babyshambles (a word combination of Baby and Battlesomething?) presented himself in front of exactly 995 listeners as what he is aside from paparazzipictures and letters in gossip columns: a musician. And a) not a bad one at all and b) despite expectations quite a productive/capable one. The song poet who could write one hit after the other in the pop music business and his three accomplices played one and a half hours through their new album “Shotter’s Nation”, touched upon their successful debut “Down In Albion" and offered a few surprises.The greatest surprise was the sound: Doherty and the guitarist Mik Whitnall proved to be fundamental opposers of the modern guitar electronics and amplification purists. What the listeners heard over the loudspeakers was the rattling sound of two Rickenbackers that turned into ridiculous twangs and glassy strums only through raw power of the right hand and feel of fingertips of the left. Doherty plays better than critics would like to admit. In addion, he is a very resourceful songwriter, who weaves little hooks into his constantly winding? Stop-and-Go-Songs, and that the ears of the listeners of modern homogenous rock sound don't expect. Unlike on the album the drummer Adam Ficek offers pressuring, thunderous sound live surpassing even Wagner's Walküre (hi, Coppola!) to which the band made their dramatic entrance.Relatively big were the eyes of the Concertgoers, when they’d digested the famous sound after the first few Songs. Front man Doherty, who had finally gotten rid of his hoodied jumper after the second number, offered the next surprise: not only that he astonished the “I’d like to look like a fucked up teenager from East London”-Kids, with wearing sweatpants and a uni-colored t-shirt (the rest of the band wore blue jeans and plain shirts); he stood upright, didn’t have a liquor bottle in his hand, spoke clearly between the songs and seemed so playful that one nearly thought it was his double.It is known that the management of the band has tried to get the singer to be healthy and reasonable for months already – what isn’t known is that it already shows. The 28-jear-old, who has lived also in Germany, Northern Ireland and Cyprus because of this father who is a military officer, drank just one glass of beer during the whole show (some suspicious comment in brackets). Things were completely different at his last solo performance in Vienna (the show on Sunday was the first one with Babyshambles) as he performed with Adam Green. Doherty's only trespassing on Sunday was a soft kick in the backside of a drunken fan who probably wanted to impress a girl and climbed on the stage and hopped around between Doherty and bassist Drew McConnel for a few seconds.Extremely solid performances of bangers like “Pipedown”, "The Blinding", "Fuck Forever" (at the very end), reggae-esque good-mood-tune “I Wish” and songs off “Shotter’s Nation” like the new single “You Talk", hangover-song "Carry On Up The Morning" and the chopped up “Delivery” defied the memories of Doherty’s Youtube videos where he is incoherent, out of tune and barely able to hold the guitar in the correct position.The next headline à la "Pete Doherty’s cat has its own Crackpipe" will surely come – despite the impression, which the most ingenious figure of the British music scene of the moment (after Amy Winehouse, but that is a different story...) made on Sunday, it will however not last.

1 comment:

A. G. Hanne said...

If you don't mind, I got curious what the Austrians wrote about him and did a translation of my own. I'm not a native speaker so it's possible and probable I got something wrong:

Whoever came to Wiener Arena with firm expectations to be able to accompany the useless, gossip column fodder a little along his way to deadly overdose, made a huge fool of themselves / were dead wrong. Not that Pete Doherty isn’t a weird man whose attraction to illegal substances is obvious to anyone; however it is too early to tell? In short: the concert was amazing.
The front man of Babyshambles (a word combination of Baby and Battlesomething?) presented himself in front of exactly 995 listeners as what he is aside from paparazzipictures and letters in gossip columns: a musician. And a) not a bad one at all and b) despite expectations quite a productive/capable one. The song poet who could write one hit after the other in the pop music business and his three accomplices played one and a half hours through their new album “Shotter’s Nation”, touched upon their successful debut “Down In Albion" and offered a few surprises.
The greatest surprise was the sound: Doherty and the guitarist Mik Whitnall proved to be fundamental opposers of the modern guitar electronics and amplification purists. What the listeners heard over the loudspeakers was the rattling sound of two Rickenbackers that turned into ridiculous twangs and glassy strums only through raw power of the right hand and feel of fingertips of the left. Doherty plays better than critics would like to admit. In addion, he is a very resourceful songwriter, who weaves little hooks into his constantly winding? Stop-and-Go-Songs, and that the ears of the listeners of modern homogenous rock sound don't expect. Unlike on the album the drummer Adam Ficek offers pressuring, thunderous sound live surpassing even Wagner's Walküre (hi, Coppola!) to which the band made their dramatic entrance.
Relatively big were the eyes of the Concertgoers, when they’d digested the famous sound after the first few Songs. Front man Doherty, who had finally gotten rid of his hoodied jumper after the second number, offered the next surprise: not only that he astonished the “I’d like to look like a fucked up teenager from East London”-Kids, with wearing sweatpants and a uni-colored t-shirt (the rest of the band wore blue jeans and plain shirts); he stood upright, didn’t have a liquor bottle in his hand, spoke clearly between the songs and seemed so playful that one nearly thought it was his double.
It is known that the management of the band has tried to get the singer to be healthy and reasonable for months already – what isn’t known is that it already shows. The 28-jear-old, who has lived also in Germany, Northern Ireland and Cyprus because of this father who is a military officer, drank just one glass of beer during the whole show (some suspicious comment in brackets). Things were completely different at his last solo performance in Vienna (the show on Sunday was the first one with Babyshambles) as he performed with Adam Green. Doherty's only trespassing on Sunday was a soft kick in the backside of a drunken fan who probably wanted to impress a girl and climbed on the stage and hopped around between Doherty and bassist Drew McConnel for a few seconds.
Extremely solid performances of bangers like “Pipedown”, "The Blinding", "Fuck Forever" (at the very end), reggae-esque good-mood-tune “I Wish” and songs off “Shotter’s Nation” like the new single “You Talk", hangover-song "Carry On Up The Morning" and the chopped up “Delivery” defied the memories of Doherty’s Youtube videos where he is incoherent, out of tune and barely able to hold the guitar in the correct position.
The next headline à la "Pete Doherty’s cat has its own Crackpipe" will surely come – despite the impression, which the most ingenious figure of the British music scene of the moment (after Amy Winehouse, but that is a different story...) made on Sunday, it will however not last.