GIG NUMBER ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FOUR
Who
Probably the thing that swayed me was the strong supporting bill, as I've always admired Maximo Park and Spiritualized, but never quite enough to fork out cash to see them playing by themselves. I'd seen both at festivals before though. Also The Pogues seemed intriguing, and led to the obvious question of whether they would break out Fairytale Of New York in a July set? Also Spiritualized, The Pogues and The Libertines are all famous for alcohol and drug issues, which made me think that it would be interesting to see if everyone could not only show up but also stick to a rigid festival running order and strict curfew? The closest I'd came to seeing The Libertines was Dirty Pretty Things playing I Get Along at Reading 2006, and apart from two warm-up shows in Glasgow these were to be their first shows since Reading & Leeds 2010. They also followed it up with a few festival shows in Europe and there has been talk of a third album, so they were making a proper go of it, although Pete was surprisingly honest in admitting that money had been a large motivating factor behind this show. Certainly The Libertines had never stepped up to this level of live concerts, and although the corporate nature of a Hyde Park show bore little resemblance to the spirit of the band I had a feeling that this would be special - either their Heaton Park/Knebworth moment or else a notable disaster.
I purchased their second self-titled album and tried my best to get into the songs, which was nice and easy as I found both albums to be strong and that The Libs would have no issue filling a set. I did miss their heyday sadly as I was too busy being a student and following my ears rather than popular tastes, but I do think I had missed out as they are a great band in a century that so far has not provided too many who could stand alongside the legends of old. Listening to their music was a little frustrating as my iPod headphone socket was still playing up and required considerable fiddling in order to get music to come out of both ears, and even when I managed it it lost some of the sonic range. In particular Music When The Lights Go Out lost its lovely soft guitar solos on headphone listening, but the gist of the music shone through. In particular I decided that What Katie Did was a tune, but memories of watching it on TV from Reading 2010 and seeing the crowd participation really added to that perception too.
I'd printed a site map and decided to take the small risk of heading down on Saturday morning, which freed up Friday night to pack and ready myself for two separate weekends in London and also to pack three weeks of work clothes and evening wear. I'm pleased to report that I forgot nothing! I headed down to London then out to Matt's new place in Shortlands near Bromley, then we decided to venture to the one pub in town, which was right next to the railway. Perhaps I should have shown more urgency to get to the show but it was nice to chill out for a bit and enjoy fruit cider - something I can enjoy now I've discovered it bears no relation at all to apple cider - and I've even developed enough of a taste for it to understand that Rekorderlig sits far above Bulmers as the king of the readily available ciders. I also had fish and chips, which proved far too large for my liking, but I'd tried hard to cut down on my diet and perhaps shouldn't have been naughty enough to attempt it. I'd even contemplated a starter or cheese and biscuits, but that would have been an impossible challenge!
I understood enough about The Libertines to know not to wear a baseball cap and had also warned Matt of this, but surprisingly a few fans still wore them! We had a McFlurry on our way in and I purchased a possibly unnecessary train ticket, then we walked all the way from Victoria up to the entrance on the far side of Hyde Park. As we were walking around the venue we could hear that The Enemy were onstage and that the atmosphere already sounded quite rowdy, and if I heard correctly the touts were selling tickets for £20, but perhaps that was the buying price? Gates had opened at 12:30 but we only made our way in by around 3pm, and I'm pleased to report that this seemed to work out quite well, and that we had no problems getting in our 500ml water bottles, which were stated as being ok on the rules as long as they were sealed, but as I didn't trust them I hid it in my pocket anyway. I worried we'd missed Graham Coxon but as it turned out he randomly hadn't played anyway, and my inability to find the running order online fortunately hadn't caused us any grief. In fact start times were displayed onscreen between the bands, which was a nice touch.
We were pleased to get inside and walked swiftly towards the stage, noting that it was exactly the same set-up as it had been for The Rolling Stones 11 months before. Again the site was super-corporate and had the same fake but colourful and pretty bar area they'd had before, somewhat undermined as Heineken was the drink of choice! It makes me wonder if any band has the guts to actually stand up to bad beer, petty rules and high prices, but clearly The Libertines had just gone along with it! Also the stage was again adjourned by two massive fake trees, and I wondered if any birds had been sufficiently fooled to try and nest in them? The Enemy were shite as expected. We saw them doing their biggest hit We Live And Die In These Towns and their laddishness appealed to some of the wanker element of the crowd, but I'm afraid that their tracksuits and punchable faces means I'll struggle to ever judge their music objectively. Still, it was nice to cross them off my long list of bands I've seen live, even though it was hardly a burning ambition in my life to see them play!
The advantage of studying the site map was that I'd correctly surmised that we had to approach from the front-left to get past the inner barrier, and once we made our way in after the post-Enemy exodus we found that the front area had been split into two, allowing for two separate VIP areas, including a massive and empty one at the front-right for those who presumably missed the entire point about The Libertines being an inclusive band of the people? Phone internet was shite but we sat down and started to thrash out plans for the Sunday, while reflecting on what a chore it can be to attend a massive outdoor concert, dealing with drunken wankers and some serious boredom while waiting for a band to take to the stage. I think I may be growing beyond standing gigs, but at the same time have already decided that I dislike seated gigs. Maybe alternatives such as live sport, comedy or theatre are the way forwards? I just don't know! The parts of the show between acts featured many adverts and also bulletins from around the site, in particular what I presume was a hugely expensive viewing crane at the back of the arena, which I'm sure offers quite a photo op, but obviously the place to be is near the front where we were and not messing around on cranes?
Maximo Park came onstage at 4pm to provide the first proper highlight of the day, accompanied by a shaved tongue backdrop which was the artwork for their latest album. Apparently they'd come all the way down from Newcastle by train that very morning - which was quite risky! - and Paul was wearing his trademark hat and broke out a few scissor kicks while he was at it too. He name checked the fact that they had a new album out a good few times and I shot a couple of short videos during My Velocity. I also captured the other obvious highlights of Graffiti and Apply Some Pressure with further short video clips, but the setlist was denied perfection due to the omission of Now I'm All Over The Shop. Also we were a bit unnerved by a few twats in front of us who were greeting the show - and some of the more random songs - with more enthusiasm than they deserved, so we took a few steps back. Sadly as I predicted The Libertines do seem to attract some real wankers, including a super drugged guy with long hair stumbling around and mumbling incoherently before wandering off again. I think he may have been trying to make a point about my Stone Roses Heaton Park t-shirt, but I had no desire to get to know this guy!
There also was another herd of twats with upside down sunglasses on, and the low point was when some complete cunt threw what was a cup clearly filled with piss. At least I had my cap on but it was utterly disgusting, and this kind of behaviour makes me think that they should ban everything except water bottles at gigs. Throwing water bottles isn't as "fun" anyway, so that would discourage people? Also some cider was thrown on us, and we were utterly confused as one of our water bottles literally vanished off the face of the earth, so it was fortunate that we'd been drinking at a slow pace! Spiritualized came onstage at 5:25pm and it was the first time I'd seen them since, amazingly, the Leeds Festival in 2002 back when I was young! They made for an interesting stage set-up as to the right was Jason and a couple of backing singers dressed in white then the rest of the band were to the left and dressed in black. Also they were accompanied by a swirling black and white pattern which acquired some colours only for a brief moment near the end of the set. Very exciting stuff! By this time I'd worked out that my camera videos were restricted in length as I'd set them in high definition/widescreen, so I reduced the quality and shot a bit of Hey Jane in far fuzzier fashion than I'd had liked. This was followed apparently by a song called Lord Let It Rain On Me, which I thought was tempting fate a bit!
Hey Jane was pretty much the only non Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space track that I knew and if it was up to me they'd just had played that album in full, although I understand that Jason had tried that a few times and really hadn't enjoyed the experience? And maybe I'm being a bit unfair as I have barely made any effort to get into the rest of their material. They weren't as engaging as I'd had liked - Jason sitting down and positioning himself so far to one side and then not even facing us doesn't help matters at all - but I enjoyed them in the comfort of knowing that I hadn't had to spend £25 for the honour. Ladies And Gentlemen was represented just by Electricity - where the backing singers left the stage - and also Come Together, and I shot videos for both. The crowd didn't quite seem to know the songs and they didn't appeal much to the wanker element either, but they were quite politely received and I was happy to be there. Matt now popped off for his obligatory loo break while I headed back a bit, away from the less savoury characters. Next up were The Pogues and the crowd quite suddenly filled up just moments before they took to the stage.
They didn't really have a backdrop but they certainly had a lot of energy. Or at least most of them did. I almost wonder if Shane MacGowan is putting on an act, as I find it hard to believe that a man could be so utterly pissed all the time and yet still be alive? Someone joked that he took to the stage in a suit so he'd be ready for burial if he drops over dead and I do wonder what the inter-band dynamics are. Do they all get on? Do any other of them have problems, or do they just spend their time supporting Shane? Considering how energetic and professional they were compared to Shane's mumblings I am left to wonder if by including him in the group they're exploiting him or holding themselves back from being a lot better? Certainly they'd be less noteworthy without him, so as interesting as it is to ponder that point I'll let them off. An amusing thought is to imagine that the moment Shane walks offstage he puts on a posh English accent and says "that was a good show don't you know?" He was prone to randomly wandering off and I do wonder if it was completely unplanned that he was doing that, but he always came back for more and it made things interesting, if a little tense!
Also the rest of the band seemed ready to make do without him at short notice. One moment was when they had to stop their set as a guy near the front apparently had a heart attack, but they saw things through to the end. I shot a short video of one jaunty ditty but the undisputed highlight was a little number called Dirty Old Town, where somehow Shane became far more coherent and the crowd launched into quite a spontaneous singalong which may have been the high musical point of the entire night. At the end he helped the "rock out" by banging on the drums and I can let them off not playing Fairytale Of New York as I think it would have been a bit weird. I have to say that I'd been mightily impressed by the quality and diversity of the support bill. Normally they're something to be suffered, and considering that I generally wasn't as "up for it" as I'd had liked they'd done a good job in retaining my interest. I'd never have paid money to see any of them individually but it was nice to catch up with Spiritualized and Maximo Park, and The Pogues in Dirty Old Town alone had justified their place at the top of the supporting act tree.
The warm-up to The Libertines included a video backstage interview, which was unnerving as Pete wasn't there and also a bit of a waste of time as they never bothered to turn the sound on! I'd read that morning that there'd be a special announcement on the video screens at 8:30pm and indeed there was, the news turning out to be a couple of shows at Alexandra Palace for the autumn, and in fact they announced a third night soon afterwards. This was an encouraging sign that this reunion was going to last for at least a bit longer. This seems a good time to confirm that all bands had proved to be punctual despite my doubts - and there clearly was a real chance that someone would fail to make it - and I wondered to myself what the first song could be. Horrorshow had been a great choice at Reading and there'd also been talk of The Good Old Days, which certainly would have worked out nicely. The crowd had now really filled out though and the moment arrived with a fabulously compiled selection of still photos being projected onto the screen, some of which made for excellent photos on my camera too.
They opened in quite simple fashion like their debut album does with Vertigo and mirrored The Stone Roses in the sense that it was just the four of them and their personalities and music. No fucking around with choirs or extra members. Carl was on the central mic and Pete was to the left, whereas I doubt that John Hassall could possibly have looked any more non-plussed by the whole thing. All the band were present and correct and ready to perform! However a show also relies on the crowd, and everyone was getting far too excited. In fact the moment The Libs came onstage a huge section of the crowd to the left of us fell over as one! Second song Boys In The Band was pretty mental and was stopped twice due to crowd surges. Things started to get scary as we thought that at the least the show would be abandoned or at the most that people were being crushed to death down at the front. It was worrying as we were screamed at to step back, and glimpses of calm were provided mainly by Gary who encouraged some chanting as the band also played brief snippets of Build Me Up Buttercup and Seven Nation Army in an attempt to calm things down a bit. Pete in particular seemed on perfectly good form and probably was a bit pissed off to be on time for once in his life to then be held up by the crowd going too mental.
I shot a bit of The Delaney's intro - a b-side which I know they love but I can see why it failed to make the cut for the album - and Campaign Of Hate then led into Time For Heroes. I shot a really fantastic video of the main guitar solo, with my camera panning left to reveal green flares and right to reveal crushed fans being lifted out to be re-transplanted into the VIP area, no doubt pissing off the people who'd spent hundreds of pounds on a premium ticket. Again it was stopped due to crowd surges and things were getting quite scary as fans were being taken out to our right. It was a bit of a crush I admit but my glasses were never under any real threat and despite a lot of hands in the way I could see most of the set. We did stay on the right fairly close to the barrier and my main complaint was that I couldn't mosh and general worry that people were being hurt or that the show would be curtailed and descend into a riot. I certainly could hack the crowd but at the same time was left thinking that if I hadn't had so much experience of crowds/festivals/gigs I'd probably have been too traumatised by the whole thing to ever attend another standing concert again. Matt had a worse time for it as he was a bit to my left and claimed to be unable to see a thing, which sucks. We gradually moved backwards but things never quite calmed down.
I find it hard to believe that the band stuck to their guns and then played Horrorshow as that was certainly a tune likely to inspire more carnage, but I guess that the show had to go on and that The Libertines are more attuned to chaos than most. Music When The Lights Go Out provided a rare moment of relaxation before the utterly fabulous What Katie Did, which surprisingly Carl sings the lead on. It was precisely the mass crowd singalong I'd hoped for and was the highlight of the set for me, and I shot a nice little video capturing Carl coming in to start the chant off. Tune! Can't Stand Me Now was dispatched with surprisingly little crowd disruption and things had calmed down now to the point that it seemed like the guys had a fighting chance of completing their set as intended. The only song I didn't recognise was Love On The Dole, which was an old song that was demoed but never properly released. One I really enjoyed was Death On The Stairs, before we then had another rare quiet moment with Radio America, which featured a revolving globe video on a loop.
I've always held Don't Look Back Into The Sun in very high regard and in fact it was the only Libertines song I loved when I was at University as it was played once in the bar, and I'm surprised to note that Up The Bracket and What A Waster were played back-to-back without too much carnage, although perhaps the fact that I am struggling with detail suggests that it was all getting a bit mental, although it has also taken me seven weeks to write up my notes, which doesn't help my memory either. Things then took a very strange turn as France of all songs was ground to a halt. It's pretty much the quietest moment in the set but only the first verse was played as believe it or not naked fans had started climbing up the sound delay towers. Please Get Down From The Delay Tower was flashed up on screen, and Matt swore that a girl next to him asked if that was to be the name of their third album! I sincerely hope it is, that would be hilarious!! Things were starting to get a bit heated now, time was being lost due to these "moments" and Carl swore about the fact that they had loads more songs to play, and basically said "get down from the fucking towers."
I guess I must have been totally distracted in this chaos as apparently this was followed by a version of Albion by Babyshambles, featuring Pete and Carl solo. I do not remember that at all though? The main set then finished as it should do with I Get Along, whereupon I shot a short and very blurred video of a seriously mental lightshow and then another one of the drum solo that brought the set to a close. All the media talk of this event focused on crowd surges and general chaos but surprisingly no-one mentioned the ending, as Pete and Carl engaged in what looked to be a heated discussion with some technical people before presumably they were denied the possibility of doing an encore. Which would be pretty fucking ridiculous as it was only 10:30pm on a Saturday night and practically every outdoor show ever has an 11pm final curfew? I would have been annoyed by this but they'd finished as I'd hoped and played all the best songs, but I was a little concerned that a disgruntled crowd would start to riot! Thinking about it afterwards I noted that The Good Old Days and What Became Of The Likely Lads hadn't been played, and I understand that these were scheduled to form the encore which never happened.
It would have been good but short of playing Kilimanjaro and Bang Bang You're Dead as an encore they'd already peaked. Hilariously Pete's token encore was a quick version of the Hokey Cokey, which may have been what prevented a riot as it was an amusing way to end. Also a bit earlier Pete and Carl had given a rendition of the poem Suicide In The Trenches, while making an understandable comment that getting up and performing onstage may feel nerve wracking, but it's nothing compared to leaving home to go and fight in a war abroad. True as that may be, tonight had felt at points like it could have ended in bloodshed too! We walked out with thankfully no fuss and one of the stewards had the audacity to tell us off for jaywalking by passing in front of a car that couldn't go anywhere anyway. Last time I checked England was a country that trusted its people to cross the road under their own steam though, so I didn't dignify her moan with a response. We also had no hassle whatsoever getting the train, although we had a bit of a wait so I joined the queue for McDonalds, before getting too frustrated as they were making seemingly no effort to serve people, so then I wandered over to Boots instead for some food.
I was so sweaty and my ears were whistling, and unusually despite the smooth journey back I was just too tired to even attempt to write up any gig notes on the night. It had been a mental and quite stressful evening but I was happy to have attended as it had felt like an event and the four main bands had all entertained and in different ways too. I spent a good bit of time on my phone looking for news stories and it seemed apparent that the media had decided that this show was a bit newsworthy too, although it took me a few days to learn that the fans climbing the delay towers had been naked. How rude! The next day was a wonderful contrast as we went to Clacton-On-Sea and Walton-On-The-Naze to check out their piers before having dinner at the fabulous Katzenjammers Bierkeller back near London Bridge station. I had the largest schnitzel I'd ever seen and overall I think it was a great weekend, although Matt had been completely put off by all the crowd trouble. Still, it was memorable, and along with Monty Python a couple of weeks later I had ticked the desired boxes of doing something special to fill our summer with what we hadn't done before.
Mark: 8.0/10
The Libertines
Support
The Pogues
Spiritualized
Maximo Park
The Enemy
Where
London Hyde Park
When
5th July 2014
Price
£55.00
Who with
Matt
Position
Towards the front
Comments
Amazingly this was only my second show of 2014 as I seem to have reached a point where I've seen so many of my heroes that it gets harder and harder to motivate myself to go out. Watching the same bands again when there's no new material of note or seeing acts of a lower quality just doesn't appeal very much to me. In fact I'd only agreed to see Goldfrapp reluctantly as part of my birthday celebrations and hadn't been too fussed about this show either, eventually rationalising that I'd probably be working in the Milton Keynes area at around this time so it made sense to attend, and Saturday night is always the best. The show was two weeks before Monty Python and, with a weekend at work in the middle, made for a solid bit of time away - in fact I was asked to stay away longer which meant I had almost three weeks away from home. We booked this relatively near the time as it was late to be announced, but the tickets didn't seem to sell out anyway. I understand that 60,000 fans made it in the end. Surprisingly Arcade Fire also confirmed that they were playing a few days later - as this was all part of the British Summertime run of shows - but as I had enough in my diary and the Reflecktor album had yet to captivate me I wasn't too fussed about that.
Setlist (The Enemy)
Had Enough
Aggro
Be Somebody
No Time For Tears
Away From Here
Saturday
This Is Real
Happy Birthday Jane
We'll Live And Die In These Towns
This Song
You're Not Alone
Setlist (Maximo Park)
Give, Get, Take
Our Velocity
My Bloody Mind
Leave This Island
Books From Boxes
The National Health
Graffiti
Hips And Lips
Girls Who Play Guitars
Apply Some Pressure
Midnight On The Hill
Going Missing
Setlist (Spiritualized)
Here It Comes (The Road, Let's Go)
Hey Jane
Lord Let It Rain On Me
Electricity
Shine A Light
Cheapster
Oh Baby
Come Together
Take Your Time
Setlist (The Pogues)
Streams Of Whiskey
If I Should Fall From Grace With God
Boys From The County Hell
A Pair Of Brown Eyes
Jesse James
Streets Of Sorrow/Birmingham Six
The Body Of An American
Repeal Of The Licensing Laws
Dirty Old Town
The Sick Bed Of Cúchulainn
Sally MacLennane
A Rainy Night In Soho
The Irish Rover
Fiesta
Setlist (The Libertines)
Vertigo
Boys In The Band
The Delaney
Campaign Of Hate
Time For Heroes
Horrorshow
Begging
The Ha Ha Wall
Music When The Lights Go Out
What Katie Did
The Boy Looked At Johnny
Can't Stand Me Now
Last Post On The Bugle
Love On The Dole
The Saga
Death On The Stairs
Radio America
Don't Look Back Into The Sun
Tell The King
Up The Bracket
What A Waster
France
Albion
I Get Along
