Review: Peter Doherty And The Puta Madres, Fibbers, York, February 13

EVERYTHING a great rock gig should be. Packed to the ginnels, full of atmosphere and the sparkle of anticipation, this is the reason why Fibbers endures.

There was a sign of relief when it was clear that Peter Doherty and his band meant business. All eyes were on the Doherty, who managed to control proceedings with seeming little effort. His guitarist rarely took his eyes off him, and the musical bromance is clearly reciprocated. Loved by women and admired by men, Doherty’s crowd take no prisoners, but in their eyes he could do no wrong.

The music is where Doherty seems most alive (as he sang with Babyshambles, "It’s the songs that deliver me, straight through the heartache and misery"). His life is writ large in the songs, and the leery, heady music is exultant and defiant.

Like his heroes, Alex Chiton, Lou Reed or Townes Van Zandt (whose Pancho And Lefty got a surprise airing, not that many cared), Doherty’s outlaw status brings an edge to the music and the show.

Perhaps it is therefore appropriate that the normal rock rules seem not to apply to him. No need here for a set that flows, or to worry about how songs stop, go out of tune, or even who tries to sings them.

The provocatively named Puta Madres are not a radical reinvention on previous Doherty bands; with a solid bottom allowing some wayward violin and keyboard to float around the two electric guitars.

There was no setlist; instead they huddled together to decide what came next. They played tasters from their imminent new album (song titles such as Paradise Is Under Your Nose and Travelling Tinker gave you an idea what to expect), plus covers (including the Velvet Underground by way of Oasis) and his "classics’.

Best of the new songs was Who’s Been Having You Over, which has a pure rock'n'roll swagger. Of course, it was the Libertines' material that shook the roof tiles and sent beer flying in the air. You're My Waterloo had cutting lines, while the roaring closer F**k Forever showed that, if he wanted it enough, Doherty has put away his hotelier’s weeds and could use his notoriety, talent and charisma to fill stadiums.

Paul Rhodes

Peter Doherty And The Puta Madres playing to a packed Fibbers

Also in attendance on Wednesday was The Press trainee reporter JOE RICHARDSON. Here is his account of Peter Doherty's York gig.

IT'S gone eight and support act Mark Eden is closing his set. He finishes on a medley of crowd-pleasers The Wild Rover and Dirty Old Town.

As the Nick Cave-cum-Pete Doherty-styled troubadour approaches the end of the latter song, a violinist is ushered on stage and prepares to accompany him.

Eden seems to not notice. He finishes his song and goes to put his guitar down when it is taken from his hands by a tall, thin man who has come on to the stage.

The tall man picks up the Ewan MacColl standard where Eden left off and, as the violinist starts to play the familiar harmonies, Pete’s dulcet opioid-inflected tones take over from Eden’s gruff Celtic punk vocals.

Mr Doherty has arrived.

When he departs the stage – Peter Doherty opening for Peter Doherty and The Puta Madres, a name whose translation is better left out – it is another 25 minutes before he comes back on, whereupon he and his third band open with Hell To Pay At The Gates of Heaven.

The song – from his second solo album, Hamburg Demonstrations – was written in the wake of the 2015 terrorist attacks on the Bataclan in Paris and includes the line “come on boys, choose your weapon, J45 [a model of Gibson guitar] or AK47”, seemingly positing the choice between militant artistry or belligerence.

From Doherty's demeanour, his literacy and his lyrical poetry, it is clear his choice is that of the artist. He acts the part of a contemporary Arthur Rimbaud, a decadent and a Fin de Siecle poet for the alienated 21st century, whose addictions and (mis)adventures have become as large a part of the myth as the music itself of the Libertines and Babyshambles frontman.

The gig itself comprised largely Hamburg Demonstration and Puta Madres material with a smattering of early Libertines songs and a cover of the Velvet Underground’s Ride Into The Sun, featuring a brief foray into Oasis's Don’t Look Back In Anger. The titles meld perfectly into The Libertines’ Don’t Look Back Into The Sun, but this was apparently not a forum for old hits. It’s understandable: with a new band on a new tour, an artist needs to grow.

What A Waster was another Libs' track that went unplayed. Doherty – who obligingly read out all notes handed to him from the throng at his feet, including someone's poem – had his bandmates gathered around, in what was surely mock ignorance, a scrap of paper requesting the infamously profane garage indie anthem.

In fact, his new bandmates fit in well with the ambience Doherty has cultivated, joining him in standing stock still at the end of the Puta Madres’s first single, Who’s Been Having You Over, while the keyboardist appeared to be playing the harmonica, during Albion, upside down. Whether intentional or not, it was done with panache. Even so, while one imagines the band would have become accustomed to Doherty’s whims and endearingly shabby nature by now, they were still left behind on occasion as Doherty slid in a couple of half-finished obscurities.

And, as with the note-passing, the crowd were very much in on this as well. Before the band returned from a mid-set break, Nikki from Wakefield, sanctioned by Doherty, proposed to her boyfriend on stage. He said yes. Cue the first verse and chorus of For Lovers.

One hit, if it can be so called, that had the crowd captivated from start to finish was the poignant You’re My Waterloo, an early guitar-based demo that received a proper outing as a piano-led ballad on the Libertines' 2015 album Anthems For Doomed Youth.

The closing song, the Babyshambles single F#ck Forever, sent the crowd justifiably mental – and reminded us that as good a presence and personality as Doherty is, there is little substitute for a familiar beer-flinging singalong rocker in a small, packed venue.

Pete has chosen his weapon, but would that it were loaded with Libertines hits.

Joe Richardson