I was never a big fan of the Libertines. When the NME and all the indie (as in the music genre) press were raving about them I was nodding my head to to other stuff. I tried to listen back to them after the band imploded, as good friends implored me to give it a go. But to be honest I never quite got it.
But we all go through phases of music and around the time that Bang Band You’re Dead came out I had been rocking out a lot more. When the CD arrived at LeftLion HQ I decided to give it a listen. Thought it was pretty damn cool actually, nothing deep or life changing, but good indie rock all the same. Particularly cool that they kicked out the crackhead. I don’t have a lot of time for anyone who becomes an icon to young people and takes bad drugs so publicly… and anyone who spends so much of his life in the pages of The Sun (maybe not all his fault – but hey).
So here I found myself with a blonde bombshell of a photographer at my first real indie rock gig in ages. Dirty Pretty Things take to the stage and frontman Carl Barat takes to the microphone to sing the opener Deadwood. They then plied through a series of tracks from their debut album Waterloo To Anywhere, such as Doctors And Dealers, You Fucking Love It and Gin And Milk, which went down a treat with the crowd.
As Anthony Rossomando grabbed his trumpet and played the opening bit to Bang Bang, You’re Dead, the uber-cool crowd started to go really wild. This was one of the first gigs on their tour and an early chance for them to impress their fans, both new listeners and old Libertines followers.
All in all quite like this band. I won’t be buying their merchandise or trying to look like them, but I’ll play their CD over a few times most likely. Maybe it’s all about timing… and I quite respect their dignified silence over recent matters. While Pete Doherty is a household name in this country for his dating, drug habits and general stupidity, his old bandmates Carl Barat and Gary Powell (the drummer) are getting a more solid reputation for their music. And they don’t rob their best mates flats for drugs or drive away from drink-driving sentences in court either. Rock on!
Dirty Pretty Things played at Rock City on 10 May 2006
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