Fifteen years is a long time in the pop world, and since Dirty Pretty Things initially disbanded in 2008, its members have reformed old groups, created new ones, toured up and down the country and won Oscars. The band was also sometimes derided as the less scandalous companion to Pete Doherty’s Babyshambles, and its history has seemed eternally shaped by The Libertines’ breakup and subsequent tabloid soap opera. So this gig feels like a triumphant homecoming and a reappraisal, repositioning the band in the center of Camden, the place that inspired them as they play their debut album Waterloo to Anywhere almost in full.
The night begins with solid support from young indie rockers The Dead Freights, who have the snarling strut of The Libertines in their prime and are an ideal choice to set the crowd up for what’s to come. So too are the (slightly less young) Ramona Flowers, who visibly enjoy playing to the packed venue and bring a whiff of synths into the space but are tight and talented on the guitars. Then, the main event.
There’s no preamble as the band immediately tears into ‘Deadwood’, which has lost none of its jangling bounciness and is carried off by frontman Carl Barât with ease which reflects his many years in the business and a voice which remains as strong and energised as ever.
So too are the rest of the band; original guitarist Anthony Rossomando shows off his considerable guitar skills across the night, and some of the best moments come in his frenzied duets with Barat, both blaring through ‘You Fucking Love It’ with all the stabbing guitar that the punk-infused track deserves. A Buzzcocks-style version of The Libertines’ ‘Delaney’, it’s another highlight of the night.
Jamie Reynolds on bass is also excellent, propelling the band (and crowd) forward track after track. It fits in well as a replacement for original bassist Didz Hammond (it probably helps that he’s played in bands with Rossomando before, the pair working exceptionally well together).
However, the undoubted star of the night is Gary Powell on drums. Powell has always been a dark horse, often little recognised for his sheer skill at whipping the crowd into a frenzy, but here he receives more love from the audience than even Barât, chants of ‘Gary Gary Gary’ a constant companion to his pounding drums and licks. As with Reynolds and Rossomando, the consistent touring of The Libertines has helped fashion Powell and Barât into a responsive combo, and all four members show the wealth of their experience across the evening.
The setlist is consistently strong and goes through all but one track from Waterloo to Anywhere, moving from rocket-fuel pop ‘Doctors and Dealers’ to just-left-of-a-crooner ‘B.U.R.M.A.’, and in the encore adds ‘Come Closer’, ‘Truth Begins’ and ‘Tired of England’ from their second album Romance at Short Notice. The set ends with the glam-rock stomp of the band’s most successful track, ‘Bang Bang You’re Dead’, ending the evening on a raucous high that lingers long after Powell has thrown his drumsticks into the crowd.
The years have been kind to these songs, and hearing them in a vastly different context to their original release (Barât and Powell are touring with The Libertines, with another album on the way) adds a sense of bittersweet closure to the original album’s sense of wounded dignity. Played to an enthusiastic crowd, Waterloo to Anywhere comes home to Camden in gloriously spiky, sometimes punky and always emotional fashion.
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