The Libertines
Whispers are echoing through the crowd, "will he?" "I heard..." "I hope.." "I bet you he'll.." "No, I doubt it.." "In the last song..". The tension is unbearable and after just 20 minutes, the crowd is growing restless, the rumours become more OTT by the minute, "He'll come onstage, a needle in his arm and die after the first song, I bet you!" People laugh, worriedly. Then, as if by magic, the screens simultaneously zoom in on the empty stage and the lonely artwork that has been hung there since Franz Ferdinand left the stage. A collective gasp echoes across the audience which has promptly silenced. And on by one they file on, Carl, Gary, John and "who the hell is that?" 20,000 people wonder as Up The Bracket starts (minus the helllaaarhhhhhghhh part). And it's wonderful. So yes, Carl looks glum and yes maybe the new guitarist does go a bit OTT, but it is wonderful (over usage ! of that word, I know). As Carl begins to sing, so does what seems like half of England. The sound is amazing, it's like when you join the choir, aged about 9, you know? When it's cool to join the choir, and nobodys bothered about how bad they sound, they just yell every word while the music teacher looks on worriedly as 100 kids destroy his favorite hymn - just imagine that, except that the music teacher is called Carl Barat, he's been in every single NME for the past I dont know what, there are 20,000 kids and none of them plan on calling him The Creepy Guy Who Plays Piano In Assembley And Has Dandruff In His Eyebrows, as soon as this is all over.
The highlight for me is probably Time For Heroes or Can't Stand Me Now, everyone can feel the tears welling up when Carl half sings/half spits the words I Know You Lie, All You Do Is Make Me Cry, I'm Still In Love With You, it's a sad moment as Carl sings both his and Pete's parts and you can feel the crowd shooting daggers at the new guitarist.
The show is great, but mostly due to atmosphere, sadly there is little if any communication with the crowd except for when Carl dedicates the new song What Became Of The Likely Lads? to the drummer Gary, who appears to be the only happy one of the Pete-less crew, at one point getting up to run around his drumkit a few times. It's cute but it doesn't lift the sadness that hangs over the show like a black cloud. The bassist looks thoroughly miserable, at one point standing completely still whilst playing a fairly complex bass line, something I did in year 7 in an attempt to show off my bass skills while playing a [spunge] song to my bored parents.
It was a lovely show, but sadly it seems as though it might have been incredibly dull if you weren't a libs fan and didn't know the words to the first album as in lots of way, the only real magic to the show was hearing the songs and singing along.
By Charlotte.
