The east London foursome return to home turf for the inaugural NME Bring It On gig night. Following the guttural preacherman-metal of Brighton's '80s Matchbox B-Line Disaster, they emerge amphetamine-itchy, wired and immaculately unstyled in tight '70s leather bomber jackets, heads rolling on shoulders, pupils dilated, fidgety.
Diving breathlessly into opener 'Horror Show', the whole thing immediately threatens to collapse under the weight of its own slipshod velocity and the sheer ludicrousness of the spectacle. Somehow they hold things together: heavy-lidded Peter steadying himself with the mic stand like a chubbier Casablancas, while his foil, Carl, sucks his cheeks and hops about looking like a blue-blooded decadent from 'Brideshead Revisited'.
At a time when our most garlanded groups look to the baggy-trousered likes of Weezer and the Deftones for their moves, The Libertines are a Britpop band in the best possible sense. Referencing The Jam, skinny-fit Adidas shirts, the theme from 'The Likely Lads', boozers, glam, The Who, speed, music hall and bootboy scuzz, it's hard to even imagine them listening to anything American: single 'What A Waster' is heavy with hilarious foul-mouthed Del Boy-isms, while Carl's plummy vocals on 'I Get Along' invoke the diffident smoking-jacket-and-cigarette-holder spirit of Noel Coward.
'Mayday', however, is an uncharacteristically bullnecked stomp - it's punk in the same way Blur used to do punk: garbled lyrics and Top Man yobbery wrapped up in downhill-without-brakes guitars. Racing each other to the end of closer 'Boys In The Band''s cocksure Glitterband clatter they just about emerge from tonight unscathed. There's no onstage scrapping, but no false starts or second takes either. Instead The Libertines' nine-number set is short, exhilaratingly chaotic, relatively free of slack and continually walks the razor-edge between flying and falling apart. They're still about three songs and a month's gigging shy of being really great, but this nervy Maximum R&B sounds like just what we need right now.
Pat Long
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