Saturday 09/10/04 The Libertines, Radio 4, Metro, Chicago

“Any requests?” asks the train conductor with the Risky Business sunglasses. 'Radio America!' “Anything other than Radio America,” smiles our conductor, John Hassel.

Gigwise would like to hear something from the bassist’s own band, Yeti, but all requests are met with the same response:  "check the website."

This is the Tower Records acoustic in-store performance from The Libertines, two of them, at any rate, supplemented by Doherty understudy, Anthony Rossomando.  It’s a subdued performance, consisting of selections from both albums.  The band is clearly saving their energy for tonight.  On the veranda, afterward, as Carl Barat signs maps of France, upon which Hassel doodles a palm tree near Macon to mark his next residence, the affable Rossomando, voices his appreciation for the requests that came from the Michiganian wing of the Libs fan club.

“I really wanted to play Tell the King,” he says, dripping sincerity, “thanks.”

Rossomando, a native of Boston, speaks highly of his hometown’s overlooked geniuses of melody, the Push Kings, in addition to Rough Trade labelmates, The Tyde.  With the Albion in dry-dock, he treats his role as a Libs pinch-hitter with accordant reverence, not gushing or gurning with a shit-eating grin of look-at-how-lucky-I-am.  Despite the inherit incongruity of an American presence in this very British group, Rossomando fits into the line-up like a natural.  If Muse can take on Streets bassist Morgan Nicholls, and if Ian Brown can resurrect the Stone Roses via a tribute band, there is room in The Libertines for Anthony Rossomando.  So to all those fanatics with knives out for the man who replaced Pete, save your barbs for the support act.    

Memo to Radio 4:  Here in the eleventh hour of the race for the presidency of the United States of America, bands like you, those with a political agenda, are fast becoming as welcome as Michael Jackson in a day nursery.  The fact that you are a punk-funk outfit isn’t helping matters, either.  When we see that your stage show is heavily reliant upon congas and cowbells, well, you might as well be having several bazookas pointed at your Converse footwear.  In annals of rock b.phphemy, congas and cowbells are even less forgivable than accordions and kazoos.  Don’t think your political stance permits these grievous errors in stage decorum.  These days, you can’t throw an absentee ballot on Broadway without hitting some socially conscious twat hellbent on rockin’ the vote.  Then there’s MTV, who devoted an entire special to the voter-registration.phpirations of our contemporary political mastermind, Drew Barrymore.  This whole political lark is starting to sound as hackneyed as the Y2K scare.  Busta Rhymes, you remember that one, don’t you?  You titled your pre-millennial album, 'Extinction Level Event', but guess what, five years on, nothing is extinct, except for your career.  So to all you punk-funk political bands out there, give it a rest.  Go burgle your bandmate’s flat.  Get addicted to smack.  Before you know it, you’ll be churning out some real regal classy ballads, and collaborating with the likes of a genuine film monster from Universal Studios for the privilege of doing so.  

At this point, Pete Doherty stands a better chance of joining A*Teens than The Libertines, so perhaps it’s best to put the past to rest.  'Music When the Lights Go Out' is the elegy.   A scimitar-twist in the gut for anyone who has ever walked a mile in Stuart Sutcliffe’s shoes, this song pleads for a reconciliation never to occur.  Never say never, right?  The breezy 'What Katy Did' cites that adage and, if it were written 21 years ago, would have made a much better Bond theme song than the fluffy recording from Lani Hall.  ‘Katy’ also employs the shoop-shoop means of harmonizing, not heard round these parts since Whitney Houston was waiting to exhale the smoke from her crack pipe into Babyface’s face.

Listen closely, kids.  The Libs are even cribbing from those wrinkly old people in REM.  Midway through 'The Saga,' five notes ring out.  You’ll hear those same five notes at the start of REM siren-welper, 'Leave.'  What gives, Mick Jones?  Fallen asleep at the mixing desk, have we?  Or has Peter Buck plugged your ears with yoghurt?  Gary Powell could beat it out for you.  Shirtless for the gig’s entirety, Powell treats this show more like a last-minute training session for the following morning’s Chicago Marathon, sparring with his cymbals like they were Everlast speed bags.  Thanks to Gary, old favourites Vertigo and 'Death on the Stairs' contribute to the devolution of a good dozen attendees into elastic-limbed gibbons at the Wigan Casino.  Long before the encore of Horrorshow and I Get Along, the venue’s posted NO MOSHING rule has been flagrantly violated, but there is nothing that the Metro’s staff can do about it.  America has waited more than a year for their heroes’ return and welcomes the The Libertines like old friends. 

Photos by Josh Cox.