Pete Doherty pays tribute to QPR, Johnny Marr and Gerry Conlon as band play first gig in London in more than four years.
Pete Doherty and Carl Barat produced a typically chaotic performance as the Libertines returned to England for the first time since their reunion.
The Libertines, playing at the latest Barclaycard British Summer Time gig in Hyde Park in London, were interrupted part-way through their second song, Boys in the Band, when the 60,000-strong crowd were asked to spread out due to a surge as the indie rockers opened.
Doherty made an impromptu appearance on drums during the first 10-minute interlude, playing percussion on a rendition of the White Stripes’s Seven Nation Army and then strumming his guitar to the Foundations’ Build Me Up Buttercup.
The audience were asked to stop throwing fireworks and flares during the first few minutes of the set.
Doherty also used one of very few interactions with the audience to pay tribute to Queens Park Rangers football club, Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr and Gerry Conlon – who was wrongly imprisoned for the 1974 IRA Guildford pub bombings and died last month – during a hit-filled set, the band’s first in more than four years in the capital.
Barat and Doherty put their once much-talked-about personal differences aside as they frequently shared a microphone and embraced mid-set as the sun went down.
The set included crowd favourites such as Can’t Stand Me Now, Don’t Look Back into the Sun and What a Waster before further interruptions – mid-song – as Barat was instructed to request that bare-chested fans stop scaling the delay tower.
A singalong of pre-school staple the Hokey Cokey closed the show.
The band also used the gig to announce two further London concerts, at Alexandra Palace on 27-28 September.
Source: TheGuardian
