Live Review: Peter Doherty at The Royal Albert Hall in London

In his Whitbread Prize winning biography Tolstoy, A.N. Wilson writes “the appearance of the great Russian writers of the nineteenth century is something only paralleled in the history of literature by the emergence of English poets during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Nothing prepares us for it. Suddenly, there they are – Lermontov, Gogol, Belinsky, Griboyedov. Above all, for the tragically brief period of 1799-1837, is Alexander Pushkin, perhaps the most varied and intelligent poet in the world…after whom Russia – not just Russian literature – would never be the same again.”

I dig that – “suddenly, there they are”, followed by the exalted list, topped by the mighty Pushkin, founder of modern Russian literature. His ‘Ode to Liberty’ was found among the belongings of the rebels of the Decembrist Revolt in 1825. The flames of which were conversely stoked after Napoleon got his arse handed to him at Moscow. French prisoners over smokes told their Russian captors of a France where every citizen is equal. Many of those Russian captors had fought at the hell of Borodino, the battle which immediately preceded the French occupation of Moscow, in which casualties were greater than any battle in previous history – 30,000 French and 40,000 Russians in a single day. The dawning of who exactly was been shafted was beginning to be realized.

Scholars have generally compared the guvnor of tonight’s show at The Royal Albert Hall, Peter Doherty, to the French Symbolists – Rimbaud, Verlaine, Baudelaire or the English Romantics – Shelley, Byron, Coleridge, Keats - but his concise, individual, varied, irreverent and jocose hand, for my money leans closer to Pushkin. Even more particular to Pushkin, is Doherty’s non-retreat from society and his complicated relationship with Empire. AN Wilson compares Byron’s essentially solitary poses to perhaps acting out, so that his admirers would not have to, rather they could live vicariously through him, whereas Pushkin found that his poses were echoed in the heart of every Russian. If only Doherty had been born in Moscow in 1779, rather than Northumberland in 1979, he may have escaped the media circus that dogged him for a decade. Although, aghast he’d be, I reckon, at the thought, for Doherty’s canon is quintessentially English.

The first song that Doherty and fellow Libertine Carl Barât wrote together, ‘The Good Old Days’ opened with the line “Queen Boadicea is long dead and gone” and goes on to declaim – “The arcadian dream so fallen through but the Albion sails on course/Let’s man the decks and hoist the rigging/Because the pig man’s found the course”. They are harking back to a pre-Roman time, to the Iceni tribe of East Anglia and their great queen Boadicea, knights of old on a quest for the grail.

Great English bands have always summoned a mythic Englishness with a view to inspiring extant England - The Rolling Stones on Between the Buttons, The Kinks on The Village Green Preservation Society. Both those records harked back to music hall – the mass populist form of entertainment in England in the 19^th century that stretched into the 1950s before been replaced by cinema and television. Watching the crowd from the balcony in Opium on Wexford Street when Doherty played there last month, swaying from side to side, singing along karaoke style, there was more than a whiff of music hall in the air. But among all the talk of dilly boys and drag kings, The Libertines were often sniffing at the decay of Empire.

It also must be remembered that the expert in the art of sniffing decay of Empire, Morrissey, is arguably Doherty’s greatest musical influence. As Doherty related to or own Stuart Clarke in a 2022 Hot Press interview – “My first gig when I was 16 or 17 was Morrissey and Cast in Battersea Power Station. I went the next day to Chester Leisure Centre to see him again. I made it on stage, went for his leg and got battered by security.” Indeed, many of the songs on The Libertines debut album ‘Up the Bracket’ reflected the short-story-in-three-minute-pop-song style of Morrissey.

Tonight, is an evening for all things Empire, for tomorrow is the coronation of King Charles III. Inside The Royal Albert Hall, the best room in the city, it’s early, there are a few about, sat quietly, comfortably, listening to Motown soul records and Peter Doherty himself, resplendent in Mark Powell bespoke blue suit, red tie, fedora hat and brown boots, wandering about his stage, which is decked out like a sitting room, placing his hats and scarf of his beloved QPR on the coat stand. He poses for photographs and chats with a couple of dozen punters who approach the stage, he appears so comfortable with them they could be attending one of his Whitechapel guerilla gigs of bygone days. The support acts also hark back to that time, the tremendous Luke Wright performing ridiculously hard univocalics and the fantastic Hak Baker, who says, he’s here because Doherty heard his song ‘Wobbles on Cobbles’, indeed when Baker plays it, Doherty appears throwing his hat in the air, in joyful support.

At the beginning of Doherty’s set, Luke Wright announces “this is a venue built for a king, he is our king, Peter Doherty.” Wonderfully, Peter and his wife Katia de Vidas open the show with ‘The Ballad Of’, a song which is a Grahame Greene novel in a couple of hundred words in Olde English. His beloved dogs Zeus and Gladys wander the stage and people shout out encouragement. Katia leaves the stage to him, and he sings ‘She Is Far’ one of the earliest songs he penned, which eventually appeared on his second solo record Hamburg Demonstrations. That sniffing sense of decay appears as he and a sweetheart wander a wintry London park looking at “monuments to blood spilt in foreign lands.”

With a dozen photographers clicking and whirring at his feet, he thanks us for coming out and talks about Charlie who is to be coronated in the morning and thanks him for allowing us the hall for the evening. He tells us he writes a lot of songs about kings but as metaphors and performs The Libertines ‘Tell the King’, like a busker outside the palace gates, who as a Shakespearean fool knows more about castles built on sand than anyone in the court within. During ‘Music When the Lights Go Out’, people call out for several large gins, glasses in the air, recalling “all the memories of the pubs and the clubs and the drugs and the tubs we shared together.” Continuing the regal theme, Peter dedicates ‘The Man Who Would Be King’ to his close friend, the late Alan Wass.

He introduces ‘Albion’ by telling us it was the first song he ever wrote and tells of the awful reception it received when he first played it at a Brentford pub. Katia plays plaintive harmonica and everyone sings along listing their home towns – Deptford, Catford, Watford, Gillingham, Eton, South London, East London, North London, West London, Dagenham, Sidcup, Sheffield, Manchester, Chichester, Doncaster. He caps it with a new song ‘Merry Old England’ welcoming the new raft of emigrants – Syrians, Iraqis and Ukrainians into the melting pot of Britain. It is a varied place, on ‘Hooligans on E’ he sings of “meat pies, Burberry and Aquascutum if you’re lucky” and football terrace chants. Hak Baker runs on and off, Peter calls out to Hak Baker’s mam, then his own mam and flows into ‘Can’t Stand Me Now’, the audience singing the Carl Barât part, standing in the balconies, fists in the air, roaring “the world kicked back a lot fuckin’ harder now!” 

He sings ‘The Ballad of Grimaldi’, a song that bounced around since early era Libertines, finally appearing as the B-Side to his second solo single, the Jean Genet and Beatles referencing ‘Broken Love Song’. Perhaps a song that he once busked in the markets of Brick Lane, or at his regular slot at Finnegans Wake in Islington or sang alone at The Shelf under the Westway.

Peter dedicates ‘Never Never’ for his old mates Bob Morris and Steph and “kind of for me as well”. He plays ‘I Get Along’ country blues style and sings “I get along…and Carlos gets along.” ‘French Dog Blues’ contains the mesh of Ian Brown’s - that other great chronicler of Empire - ‘Deep Pile Dreams’. Introducing ‘Time for Heroes’, with its namechecking of Billy Bones from Kent, Doherty says “I played here once before, I can’t really remember it. I think there was a stage invasion that night.” Cue improbable and uncalled for stage invasion! One or two excited punters leap on to the stage, followed by two dozen delirious revelers, resulting in five hundred people swamping Peter, the house lights come on, people are carrying away the furniture, two men delightfully wrestle on the couch. Peter and Katia reappear as benevolent parents watching their son’s eighteenth birthday party descend into anarchy. Peter pleads with the stage bosses to allow him continue, they are having none of it, he takes off his hat, bows to the crowd apologetically and is gone.

If allowed to continue, what would he have played? ‘Salome’? ‘Sheepskin Tearaway’? ‘The Last of the English Roses’? ‘Down for the Outing’ for his parents? ‘Flags of the Old Regime’ for Amy? ‘Don’t Look Back Into the Sun’ for Carl? ‘UnBiloTited’ for Wolfman? ‘I Don’t Love Anyone (but You’re Not Just Anyone)’ for Katia?  We will never know. I guess it’s a pity, however it was a superb gig and Doherty’s particular brand of rock and roll feeds off the juxtaposition of moments of peace and oblivion and a fascination with the mob. After all, his art is the art of the music hall, of Chas & Dave, of Ealing comedies, of being young and foolish, of being old and clueless. And all intrepid Englishmen set the controls for the heart of the sun, even in an ever decreasing Empire and in any case, there is a coronation on the morrow, so best we all get an early night.

Listen to Pete Doherty below.