By Tom Foley, First Year Film and English
Peter Doherty’s recent gig at the Trinity Centre felt like a pub gig – in a good way. Not ‘pub gig’ like drunken amateur mid-life cover bands, but ‘pub gig’ in the sense that his stage presence made the vaulted ceilings of the 650 capacity church feel like something far, far more intimate.
The other stops on his ‘Anywhere in Albion’ tour, such as Mansfield, Oldham, and Nunthorpe, were hosted in much smaller venues and pubs, making the act tailored to that sense of closeness. I was curious to see how that would hold up in a medium-sized venue like The Trinity.
Even from before the first openers were on, the sense of informality of a much smaller gig was apparent: Doherty walked along the front of the stage in tartan slippers, handing out zines to the audience for cash-in-hand.
Between the openers (swaggeringly dark indie-poppers Debdepan and two-man explosion Ganz), he asked if aspiring poet Georgia Griffiths wanted to come out of the audience and read poems from her book, which she had handed to him only hours ago.
The stunned 25-year-old performed a touching set of poems about love, politics, and loss from her book Life Imitates the Heart with remarkable confidence considering she had no preparation or warning that she was about to read to a church packed with people.
This all created an intense closeness that fuelled the main event: when Doherty emerged onto stage, the groundwork was already there for rapport. He effortlessly joked with the audience, shuffling the setlist based on their requests, and dropping anecdotes and witticisms with his signature bright-eyed profundity.
His look gave the impression of an eccentric uncle dispensing oracle ramblings from an armchair crossed with a kid dressed up in his grandad’s clothes, his ever-tousled hair joined by what can only be described as a pencil-thin mutton chop sideburns-moustache combo.
Adorned with grey fedora, grandfather shirt and blazer, his outfit evoked the grandad in The Princess Bride, but his eyes glowed with that eternal youthful innocence that only Doherty can conjure.
The purpose of this tour, of course, was to showcase songs from his new album Felt Better Alive – and these took up the middle portion of the set. The acoustic setup was tailor-made for them, but they lacked the contrast of Doherty’s older Babyshambles and Libertines material being adapted to the more stripped-back arrangements.
While I’m sure familiarity and bias play their parts in my wavering enjoyment of the new material, none of the songs stuck in my head beyond the single ‘Felt Better Alive’.
Doherty helped this dip in engagement through the gig by interlacing lullabies, anecdotes and snippets of poetry together. Where the show shone brightest was in its final moments.
As expected for a solo tour, there was a sense that the crowd was made of fans - nowhere was this more evident than the encore.
The conversational atmosphere had broken down the wall between stage and audience, so as he launched into those so-familiar songs, the atmosphere was one of pure joy and belonging: balloons were hurled out into the crowd as every word was sung back at the band.
If this was a pub gig, every single person felt like they were inches from the performance, the towering ceilings of the church filled with energy and vibrancy.
This was the solo set at the height of its power. Doherty shows that even on his own, with a tiny acoustic guitar covered in Bluey stickers, while wearing tartan slippers, that after all these years, he can put on one hell of a show.
Featured Image: Tom FoleyAre you a fan of Doherty's solo career?
