The Libertines Reform: So What Became Of The Likely Lads?

The Libertines and I go back a long way. From the original copy of ‘Up The Bracket’ I found in a Virgin Megastore bargain bin, to a fanatical period of teenage obsession where every b-side and session outtake was treated with a reverence usually prescribed to the Turin Shroud and, almost terminally, to a disastrous Pete Doherty solo show at the Royal Albert Hall which was ended prematurely by an idiotic stage invasion.

In fact, if you asked my fifteen year old self for his reaction to his idols reforming to play the Reading & Leeds festivals he’d probably have gone and bought a day ticket for both events and camped out on the front barrier just to have the chance to throw his £3 rosary beads onstage. Five years later though and £75 seems a price too high to pay for the chance of seeing a band I still greatly admire soil their memory in front of seventy-odd thousand fans.

This isn’t because the idea of taking a killjoy sense of superiority from sitting at home and spinning my ‘Can’t Stand Me Now’ vinyl appeals. Rather that the scenario in which the ragamuffin four piece have come back together seems completely at odds with the ‘Death On The Stairs’ ideal they originally stood for.

For starters, this appears to be a reunion that is completely dependent on the reported £1.5 million the band will receive upon their performance. In the same vein that Sex Pistols revived themselves for the aptly titled Filthy Lucre Tour and the Eagles notched up an unlikely ‘Hell Freezes Over’ live album, the problems that lead to the scuzz rockers’ dissolution have simply been swept under the carpet.

Joined at the hip by a live fast think later lifestyle, Barât and Doherty’s friendship survived the latter burglarising the former's flat but was ground to a halt by the tabloid pariah’s spiralling drug addiction. When push came to shove and Doherty had to choose between crack cocaine and music, he defected to form Babyshambles where he could take the best of both.

It seems unnatural then for Barât to welcome back his old mucker with open arms only two months after he was fined for taking 13 wraps of heroin to court. Whereas once the pair saw each other as a co-captain on the good ship Albion, all four parties have effectively been reduced to a joint meal ticket to be revived during periods of artistic stupor before trotting back to their various day jobs cash in hand.

Of course, regardless of the fate of this appropriately bizarre instalment in the folklore of The Libertines, the relics of a triumphant London Forum residency and an era defining debut album will remain. I can’t help thinking however, that a far less tokenistic resurrection would have been preferable to that which will occur on Friday 27th of August at Bramham Park, Leeds.

An ending fitting for the start? Probably not...