Doherty washes off tabloid dirt

(Morning Star, Saturday 01 October 2005)

LIVE: Babyshambles, Fat Sam's, Dundee

THE circus of Pete Doherty rumbles on. Even people who don't care about him, his missus or the drugs are bombarded with it every second from every angle.

The packed crowd in Fat Sam's would be easy to put down to that media saturation and people are certainly animated before the band come on, presumably because they want to be ready to dodge the Doherty vomit, although many from the previous night's gig in Aberdeen were not so agile.

So the band come on. It's not the second coming and there isn't an aura emanating from this skinny young whippersnapper in a striped jumper. Quite the opposite, as, with his hair plastered with sweat to his pasty brow, Doherty looks, for all the world, like a centre half in a junior school six-a-side.

Opening with Do You Know Me? his demeanour seems defiant. He sings: "I don't think so" in response to the titular question, determined to perform the music that he loves and journos be damned.

The idea that the crowd are just morbidly fascinated with the tabloid tale is quickly dismissed, as voices raise all around to join the singer in a raft of rocky, as yet unreleased material.

The fans start up with the well-known "ooohh ooohh ooohh," before the band launch into Killamangiro, but, shortly afterwards, a power cut stops the music short.

Gradually coming back in with bassist Drew McConnell pounding out the Rapper's Delight bassline is genius and the audience, predictably, love it.

That's probably the biggest shock. As this thin, shaggy-haired youth spins around onstage, hitting himself on the head with the microphone, the band actually seem much more together than their last gig in Dundee a mere 12 months ago.

The songs are tight, the crowd go mad for recent single Fuck Forever and there is a genuine mutual affection bubbling under all the raucousness.

Earlier in the day, Doherty told an interviewer: "It's exciting to be doing at last the thing we do best, well, the only thing we do really, which is play our tunes."

A quote which sounds for all the world like rock star rhetoric turns out to be truer than 100 tabloid column inches.

Babyshambles are a confirmed musical success and that's before they've even released their first record.