Photo: Chris Birkinshaw
Huddled in a cramped dressing room backstage at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, Gigwise has just been accused of being drunk in charge of a Dictaphone by T4 presenters Lauren Laverne and Steve Jones. Merely high on life, it’s summoning up the courage to ask what price a Kenickie reunion. Nothing stronger than a wine gum has passed its lips all evening.
Sobriety is the key. There’s serious work to do tonight involving the distribution of Gigwise badges, for it is here to catch up with south London popstrels New Young Pony Club, watch The Streets whip through a few classy takes of 'When you Wasn't Famous', see Babyshambles lovingly dismantle the Transmission stage, and employ a roving spy to bring you its irreverent observations.
Such is the perils of live TV, there’s plenty of waiting around only for everything to then happen all at once. So at 6.30pm when Gigwise is at the bar, its spy in the camp spots Pete Doherty and Kate Moss hand in hand crossing the VIP area, only to bid a hasty retreat when met by oncoming photographers. Having been up and down more times than Lindsay Lohan’s knickers, it seems Kate and Potty Pete’s never ending tabloid saga continues.
Gigwise then spies a frankly, lost looking Jimmy Carr trying make small talk with some PR bods. Concerned its report is turning all Heat magazine, Gigwise goes in search of Babyshambles. The easiest task of the evening, it involves walking down the corridor and stopping outside the door with the billowing smoke and fruity aroma. But Doherty’s nowhere to be found. Confident he hasn’t sloped off to check bids for his heroin implant on eBay, Gigwise’s inside source finds Doherty throwing up in the women’s toilets and shouting at journalists to get out of the gents. It’s an easy enough mistake to make lad.
Babyshambles are on shortly after, having brought along a posse of rappers for 'Killamangiro'. Lauren Laverne earlier confided to Gigwise that Babyshambles were “utter chaos” during their warm up. Not to be outdone, Doherty wanders onstage with his newly acquired hip hop entourage, who begin free-styling about a guy named Billy Bilo, who moves like a fish on a lilo. Bilo is Doherty’s self-appointed nickname. Inexplicably, a Soviet Union flag is then draped over the crowd. Babyshambles still haven’t nailed the song by take three. It no longer matters. Doherty, complete with Russian military cap, launches himself into the audience, while the rest of the band pulls the lighting rig into the crowd. “Why am I being paid less than The Streets for tonight?” Doherty asks in his childlike way. It’s probably because your fee’s being spent on replacement electrical equipment mate.
London quintet New Young Pony Club’s 'Ice Cream' is disco-propelled robot rock that justifies its imminent re-release. Criminally ignored first time around, its playful funk also recall Talking Heads, Eartha Kitt, Stooges and just about everywhere else in between. NYPC have superb stage presence in the form of sassy singer Tahita, man-mountain bassist Igor, affable guitarist Andy and the vampy Lou and Sarah. Having been around since 2003, it’s a shock to learn that tonight they’re popping their live TV cherry. It doesn’t show. It's an effortlessly cool performance that tantalising promises there’s much more to come.
Mike Skinner et al have been prowling the corridors backstage most of the evening. Wandering in and out of various dressing rooms, The Streets are rumoured to be playing Skinner and Doherty’s re-recorded version of 'Prangin’ Out' tonight, raising the prospect of a duet. It doesn’t materialise, but the song is the type of drug-frazzled cautionary tale Skinner thrives on. “I see through you, I’m about to do something stupid,” he half raps half moans in a semi-autobiographical lament to coke fuelled oblivion. Poor thing.
'When You Wasn't Famous', was much criticised when it came out, along with parent album 'The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living' for Skinner whingeing about having too much money, drugs and women. In fairness the track is an unsentimental tell-it-like-it-is sideways look at the pressures and temptations of fame, made more poignant when surrounded by a wall of TV cameras and the glare of neon lights. It all ends predictably in a set-trashing. The stage is surrounded by cardboard boxes, a bit like a Rachel Whiteread exhibition. The boxes land on the heads of the audience, the equipment and the camera crew until the performance can't continue. Unperturbed, Skinner cracks a mile-wide grin. He might just find a way to halt the camera glare yet.
