Review: The Libertines conclude their intimate venue tour at Glasgow’s Oran Mor

“We’re excited to be going back to our roots in these small sweaty clubs”, Pete Doherty told NME in a recent interview referring to the intimate venue tour that concluded in Glasgow’s Oran Mor, promoting the upcoming release of the historically fractious band's fourth album ‘All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade’. They like to be “where we can see the whites of the crowds eyes”. 

1997, inside a flat in Richmond, a seed was sown that was nurtured in chaotic surroundings, blossoming into one of the most impactful rock and roll bands of the 21st Century, The Libertines. Pete Doherty met Carl Barat and the pair conjoined their creative abilities, realised they could thrive off of the other, an effort that led them through the basement bars of London and then eventually onto some of the biggest stages in Europe and beyond. But the pressure of success took a toll on the individuals which seeped into their relationship and pulled them apart in spurts of self-destruction throughout two and a half decades. Today they are no longer those thrill-driven young men enamoured by extravagance. They are approaching middle-age, dampened down by experience and wisened through battle in emotional trenches. Now, seemingly disillusioned by years of flamboyance they are reunited with a deeply rooted strength. The decision to return to settings that first moulded their appreciation for the craft feels soul-driven. 

“It’s the only band that makes me feel like a school girl” a woman told me as we were waiting for them to appear, her fingers clutched tight around the metal barrier at the front of the stage. She had travelled up from Cumbria with her friends for the occasion: “You just don’t get this where I’m from”. 

Beneath a red spotlight The Libertines entered the stage and the room’s energy rose with immediacy. Pete stumbled on with fluffy hair and a sweaty T-shirt while the others followed more put together in uniform, bowler hats with shirt and tie. Plunging straight into their set beers were thrown across the room in response. 

They ran through their show merging a concoction of classics and newer material with heavy interludes that were ejected smoothly and received enthusiastically by their audience, a detail that has never faltered across their visits to Glasgow. In smaller venues like this I’m more accustomed to inexperienced bands in teeth cutting stages, early in their career. Seeing an act with the prowess of The Libertines at close quarters was euphoric almost, it gave a hint of something special.

I was struck by the bulging queue that stretched from the corner of Great Western Road to the shops and diners in Hillhead earlier in the day when I passed the old church venue. Eager fans had arrived for a pre-show accoustic set and this is when the significance of the later event dawned on me. Around the same time the band announced a larger-scale tour for later this year where they’d be playing the Barrowlands - a venue they could easily sell-out but also a symbol of ambition for young and local musicians, somewhere most will only be ever to dream of playing.

Over two decades since they formed, the jangly indie sound that was developed in their second album ‘The Libertines’ is a thread that runs throughout their live show. The lyrics that pair that youthful noise, however, have evolved. Their newer music possibly rings truer to the heart, an edge of untamed obnoxiousness stripped back and what remains is sombre, emphatic, executed with intensity and skill. They are now older, perhaps more thoughtful. There lies the unlikely beauty of The Libertines - their art rings raw and remains complimentary to the time. You can hear growth in their output. 

Here they played to a compact group of people in a place the performers intended to be in tune with elements of their past, somewhere they now feel comfortable. Tickets were in demand in a way more akin to a band on the ascent than a heritage group seeing out their time.