Guerilla In Our Midst

For a couple of seconds I felt like I was hallucinating. “It’s bloody warm” noted a softly spoken Peter Doherty to the concurring nods of the 20 or 30 people crammed into his north London sitting room. “Do you want some Haribo’s? I’ve got the sour ones and the gummy bears.” Bowls of the addictive sweets are passed around as Doherty jumps in and out of his balcony window, hopping from sitting room to bedroom bringing endless pizza and cans of lager. Fans ask to make toast while others ask for directions to his toilet. Looking around the room no one else seems to think that this is all a bit surreal. Here we are sitting in the front room of the estranged member of The Libertines, an icon for a generation, eating sugary sweets!

Yet in the chaotic and often wonderful world of Peter Doherty and fellow Libertine Carl Barât, the guerilla gigs are nothing new. Only now Doherty is in exile, dropped from the group until he sorts out his drug addictions. With three trips to rehab proving unsuccessful (the most bizarre one to a Thai monastery organised by Eastenders’ Dot Cotton), it seems unlikely he’ll be a Libertine again anytime soon.
News of the flat invitation came through one of Doherty’s regular postings on his babyshambles website. Since Polydor and EMI had bought up some 45 tickets for the 100 odd capacity gig that night (for which he subsequently failed to show), he announced he would be putting on a matinee show for those who lost out. The instructions were to go to Mount Pleasant where “there are four red telephone boxes. They will all ring at 6.05pm. A girl in a hat will issue ticket invitations/Haribo Bear donations (£10). No fakers, no forgers. no barriers, no borders. And no crack or smack. Deal? Just text this number to reserve a place.” By ten past we were sitting in his front room.
The gig itself was a beautiful shambles. Using a hoover as a makeshift mic stand, everything ran through computer speakers. It made for a hollow but wonderfully homemade sound. An acoustic set followed, interrupted only so as to answer mid-song questions about lyrics or stock up on sugary sweets. Over the hour, Pete played both old and new Libertines material, (“This one was left off the new album”), as well as his solo ‘baby shambles’ recordings. Characteristically shy, his heroin addiction was all too evident in his gaunt and pale frame, and twice through the performance a suspicious piece of tin foil fell out from under his hat. Afterwards MP3’S of unreleased songs were blasted from his laptop as it was passed around for all to post a message on the fans’ forum.
A man of the people, not many other rock stars would treat their fans to something as intimate as this. Can you imagine Bono, Noel Gallagher, or even Glen Hansard inviting fans round to their flat for an impromptu gig? Me neither.