Photo: Jon Mo
“There are 17 definitions of freedom” shouts Pete Doherty, battling dire sound problems at Brixton Academy, “and one of them is to be merry and have a good time”. The band somehow manage to conjure this spirit during even the most technically deficient moments of tonight’s show – with the crowd carrying them through classics such as 'Can't Stand Me Now' all the way to 2015’s anthemic 'Gunga Din'. It may not be pretty, clean or easy, but it just about does the trick.
Certainly, never before has it felt so urgently necessary. Tolerant British values and London culture feel more under threat in 2016 than at any other time in modern memory. It therefore seems fitting that the Libertines, the most capital-loving of the noughties Camdenset, should place itself at the forefront of the campaign to unite. Drummer Gary Powell spearheading Unity Rocks – a country-wide music initiative aiming to highlight the common good “whether you voted for Brexit of not.”
And there’s nothing quite like a set of fire and brimstone rock 'n' roll numbers to free the mind from prejudice. Powell joins Doherty alongside Carl Barat and stoic bassist John Hassall, to remind the heart rather than the brain exactly what makes life worth living.
A career-spanning set rumbles the Academy into another night of debauchery – sparked first by The Delaney and ended, somewhat typically of this increasingly sanitised city, under duress as the band dare to play past the 11pm curfew.
Tracks from comeback album Anthems For Doomed Youth dominate early proceedings, 'Heart Of The Matter' proving just why it has so quickly become a festival favourite, with its galloping guitar beat and wisened lyrics laying bare the vices that nearly cost both front men their lives. From thereon, the lack of sound clarity threatens to undermine the evening, tearing feedback through the beautiful ballad ‘You’re My Waterloo’ and near-scuppering the rarely played ‘Seven Deadly Sins’.
Fortunately, the raucousness of youth within the band’s arsenal saves the day. Rock purity is always scuzzy, ill-advised and built on emotion rather than perfection – 'Death On The Stairs' and 'The Boy Looked At Jonny' whipping a frenzy from even the most skeletal of their identities. Doherty and Barat give it their all - and where the vocal is muffled the crowd excel - singing in full, unapologetic voice.
In amongst all this mayhem an English flag is hoisted up, and, for one of the few times this year, judgement is reserved. Pride restored, however fleetingly, through music.
