Music writer Ella Reeves is impressed by the brilliant return of Peter Doherty's Babyshambles

  • Babyshambles
  • O2 Academy Oxford
  • September 13 2013

There’s no doubting the devotion still out there for Peter Doherty. No amount of adverse publicity or tales of bad behaviour can dent the love fans hold for Albion’s indie-poet laureate.

Yet, as the start time for tonight’s show at a rammed and steamy O2 Academy Oxford gets pushed further back, there’s no disguising the nerves among even his most dedicated admirers. Peter has form for no-shows, and we are all praying that he turns up; in whatever state.

So the cheers greeting Babyshambles’ swaggering arrival on stage are not just of delight but relief.

The second big ‘if’ is, given the six year gap between their last and latest albums, will they be any good? Yet as they kick off, no doubt remains that Peter and his boys are back on form.

Dressed in trademark fedora, shirt, tie and rosary beads, Doherty doesn’t seem to have aged a bit since those days when his fragile face was a fixture on the front of the tabloids. And the rest look great too; bassist Drew McConnell now fully recovered after his near fatal traffic accident. Two songs in, and with the crowd going bananas, sweat is dripping from the ceiling.

Crowd-pleasers like Delivery and I Wish are mixed with new tunes, like the catchy Dr No and Farmer’s Daughter. “Is anyone a farmer’s daughter?” he asks. And unless the Young Farmers have planned their annual outing around the show, an unfeasible number were (lads too).

New album Sequel to the Prequel has only been out a matter of days, but the crowd, arms in the air and singing along, know the tunes.

The momentum builds, Peter holding back on the real crowd pleasers, then asking the audience what they want: “F*** Forever or 8 Dead Boys?”

We all shout for the former and get the latter — and it comes raucous and throaty. We also get anthems Babyshambles and Albion; Peter clearly enjoying himself, and throwing himself into the off-key rock & roll swagger of Beg, Steal or Borrow, with its intricate finger-picking, and a heartfelt, melodic Baddies’ Boogie. Clearly he is still an expert guitarist. One fan’s request for Libertines’ classic Can’t Stand Me Now gets short shrift though (wrong band, mate!) When the controversial “F*** Forever finally comes though, with a thrilling slow-burning build-up, it’s every bit worth the wait.

Fan Evie Christopher, 17, from Oxford, summed it up as “suspense and euphoria”, and it’s hard to disagree. Anyone who expected to see Peter shambling around, a wasted wreck, would have been (mostly) disappointed. We didn’t want it to end, and nor did Peter.

The king of Albion is back where he belongs.