People who don't really do football might find it hard to understand. After all, there is round the clock reports and updates about the most insignificant matters to do with football. And the summer months brings to social media and forums the worst sorts of people in the world - the transfer speculation pervs. I can't claim to not get a little bit excited at the potential signings, but it's more the impatience of people when these signings aren't done straight away which annoys me. Fast food culture, instant gratification society etc. you know what I mean. Also, the constant use of the word "fraud" to the point that I think it's lost all meaning now.
So without football, I rely on music to give me something to look forward to in the summer months. I went to quite a lot of good out door gigs last summer, but there's not been as many announced this year by the bands that I like. A few weeks ago I noticed that The Libertines were playing a gig in Dublin, so I and a few friends booked flights to go out there and see them. I saw The Libertines last summer at their Hyde Park gig, and I'd gone to Dublin last summer for an Arctic Monkeys gig - so I knew that I'd probably enjoy the combination this time round.
I was quite late to the party with The Libertines. As said in a past blog (http://liamwright1987.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/my-generation-nu-metal-forgotten.html) I spent my teen years listening to the heavier aspect of rock music, and I wasn't interested at all in the era when they were releasing their only two albums to date. Although in that said blog I went into what appealed to me so much about that type of music, it's worth factoring in that a lot of the bands that I grew up listening to from being a young child weren't doing anything particularly great. Oasis and Blur in 2000 weren't the same band of 1995, and all the British bands that were in their place like Travis and Stereophonics never really appealed to me. I'd say the first song that brought my tastes back to British rock music after only listening to American metal for four or five years was "Cutt Off" by Kasabian. By the time I started university in 2006, I was really into the indie scene in the UK. But again, apart from a few tracks, I never really got into The Libertines for reasons I can't seem to put my finger on. Anyway, I finally got onto Up The Bracket and their self titled album a little while later and realised that they were and are the best band to come from the UK since the turn of the century. Songs which flirt between energy and beauty whilst all the time well thought out lyrics sung by two vocalists that perfectly compliment each other.
Their music is one thing of course, but it's the dynamic of the band which a lot of people find so fascinating. Pete Doherty is probably the last great rock star we've produced. Being a great rock star isn't just about writing great music and being a tortured soul, heroin addict; it's about being effortlessly cool too. Yeah, since he's stopped the smack he's put on a bit of timber and isn't looking as fresh as he was a decade a go, but he's still such a presence on stage. Earlier today I watched a 2006 interview with Pete on the Jonathan Ross show, he seemed deeply sad about how at that point nobody in the band wanted to speak to him at the time due to his drug addiction. The Libertines definitely had unfinished business and I can't imagine anyone being disappointed when they first got back together for the Reading/Leeds weekend in 2010.
Dublin is a great place, if not a little bit expensive. When travelling around Europe watching City I try to avoid going to the Irish Bars in the different cities we go to as it's not a real experience of the place you're visiting. I think with this in my mind, I've been put off the idea of Irish Bars, however, in Dublin these are obviously just bars, and a lot better than The Jimmy McMahon Shamrock in Rome, or whatever. Good weather always helps too. We landed on the Thursday at about 10 and got some breakfast down us before getting on a full session of Guinness. I think throughout the day we probably went to about 10 bars before getting to the gig, so we had a decent walk around.
Living inside the M60 gives you a distorted opinion on the size of the band who were supporting The Libertines on Thursday; The Courteeners. Have a conversation with a 22 year old in 42's about The Courteeners and I'm sure they will tell you all about how they're the greatest band out there at the moment, that Liam Fray is a great lyricist and their gigs are the most mental experiences ever because people let flares off. Everyone is entitled to their opinion when it comes to music as it is a very personal experience, but I don't get the appeal of this band (perhaps because I never had a job as a paper boy?) and judging by the amount of people in the arena to see them when they played their set, I don't think they've taken Ireland by storm yet. I think the last chord of their first song had just finished by the time I decided it was time to go back to the bar for more refreshments before the main event.
The set The Libertines played was spot on. They played a good mixture of singles, album tracks, new songs coming from their album set to be released in September and the odd b-side. The chemistry on stage between Pete and Carl is still something that you don't get with any other band that I've seen. The variation in their song writing gives you so many different emotions too. Playing the anthemic, sing-a-longs of "What Katie Did" and "Music When The Lights Go Out" back to back to ending their set with an incredible encore of the more punky songs, "Up The Bracket" "What A Waster" and "I Get Along" was a pure manic adrenaline rush in a mosh pit of sweat and Beamish. My personal highlight was "The Good Old Days". Leaving the gig in this euphoria made me and my friends continue to sing "I Get Along" down the street as we walked back into central Dublin. Nothing in life can quite compare to that feeling of the ball hitting the back of the net, away from home, with your mates, celebrating wildly. But what I experienced on Thursday night came close.
It's a shame really that the state of the British music scene is that bad that we're relying on bands from a decade ago to write and release music that is relevant. As long as I've been alive we've not had a drought of talent like this for so long. But I hope that a band like The Libertines releasing this new album can get young people in this country to write exciting rock n roll again, because we are long overdue something like The Libertines.
