Peter Doherty, The Torriano, London, 20.03.08

Peter Doherty, The Torriano, Kentish Town 20.03.08 from nearer dark on Vimeo.

Absolutely brilliant, magical night. This is the whole show, so it may take a while to load, but it's worth it. The Torriano is threatened with closure due to the machinations of property developers - please go to Torriano website and sign the petition to keep it open.
There are a couple of small skips on the video, and there is some occasional background chat, and very occasionally Peter is more audible than visible, but - oh gosh, just watch it. One of the best shows, ever.

Back from the Dead, Dilly Boys, What A Waster, The Ballad of Grimaldi, Smashing, Death on the Stairs, Albion, Pipey McGraw, What Katie Did, Beg Steal or Borrow, Music When the Lights Go Out, The Whole World Is Our Playground, Can't Stand Me Now

Coco, My Name Is A Stain, Torriano, 20.03.08

Coco - My Name Is A Stain, The Torriano 20.03.08 from nearer dark on Vimeo.

Coco at The Torriano, opening for Peter Doherty. Sorry I only filmed the last song - check docile's account for the rest on vimeo.

And please sign the petition to keep The Torriano open, as it's threatened by property developers. here
and Coco's myspace is here: iblamecoco

Peter Doherty, Powers Acoustic Room, Kilburn, 19.03.08

There will be some footage here later. This was a last minute show, so it was posted on Peter's forum and everyone who could get there dropped everything and rushed out of the door to do so. Unfortunately a radio station apparently got wind of it and announced it on air, so there was a crew of paparazzi outside, and a lot of people who seemed thoroughly unfamiliar with his music inside, but who appeared to be keen on rubbernecking at "that bloke out of the tabloids".

Which was a colossal shame, as it's a very nice venue, and it was only a fiver in, and could have been a really lovely night. One of my friends got kicked in the head by a crowdsurfer - at an acoustic show. I give up sometimes. She's alright, mercifully, but that just shouldn't happen.

Peter asked the audience several times to step back, as one of our friends is a wheelchair user and was in danger of being crushed at the front. Unfortunately a lot of people took that as a cue to push forwards. He tried again, and the same thing happened. Meanwhile the venue security had to get onstage to keep people back. Gah. The regulars at these last minute shows all know how to behave appropriately, and when these things don't get publicised on air they are far more civilised.

So I really need to go through my footage and see if I can rescue anything - he played Breck Road Lover, which is very beautiful, and rarely played, and if that's at all usable I'll post it. Unfortunately a lot of what I filmed has loud chatter from people around me talking about needing to be in the office early for meetings. Or people just going "PeeePeeePeee!". And sometimes it's very hard to see Peter due to the bouncers having to be onstage around him. Anyway, I'll post anything that works later on.

Kid Harpoon, Brighton Pressure Point, 15.03.08

Kid Harpoon, Brighton Pressure Point 15.03.08 from nearer dark on Vimeo.

Full amazing show. Riverside, Fifty Seven, Hold On, Small Town War, Her Body Sways..., Hello Marianna, Flowers by the Shore, Late for the Devil, Milkmaid, First We Take Manhattan

As powermonkey said, short but oh so very sweet. Various members of Kid Harpoon's band had been caught in traffic, possibly due to continuous deluging around the Brighton area, so they came on stage later than planned and were then up against a curfew, as there was a club night booked at the venue afterwards.
Now please rush out, buy the records, and get to every Kid Harpoon show that you possibly can.

Helsinki, Brighton Pressure Point Part 2, 15.03.08

Helsinki, Brighton Pressure Point, 15 March 08 part 2 from nearer dark on Vimeo.

Drew McConnell and Matt Park
Delivery, Je t'emmene au vent (Louise Attaque cover), Cologne Hotel, I Saw Red (Sublime cover), Ampersand

My camerawork went extremely strange a few minutes in - I'm not sure exactly why - but hang in there as it gets a lot saner afterwards. I had only been using it for a couple of weeks, so I'm very much learning as I go.

And any chance you get to see Helsinki live in any form, you should take it.

Helsinki, Brighton Pressure Point Part 1, 15.03.08

Helsinki Brighton Pressure Point 15.03.08 Part 1 from nearer dark on Vimeo.

Drew McConnell and Matt Park, Pressure Point Brighton. A stripped-down but very beautiful set.
1) Lagrimas de Oro (Manu Chao cover)
2) Bit Part
3) This Love (Joe Fox cover)

It was raining several species of domestic mammals down there - powermonkey and I got repeatedly saturated, but luckily my camera and his audio equipment survived. And the Helsinki set really was lovely.

Kid Harpoon, The Milkmaid + First We Take Manhattan, Dingwalls, London 13.03.08

Kid Harpoon - The Milkmaid + First We Take Manhattan, Dingwalls from nearer dark on Vimeo.

I definitely had a few problems with the sound at the beginning, but please do watch Kid Harpoon. We met the extremely enthusiastic stagediver/mic borrower at the next show in Brighton. Terribly nice chap, even better at sidetracking himself than I am, so me giving him a link so he could see this video on vimeo turned into him wanting the recipe for mayonnaise. But of course.

Oh and see the Kid any chance you get.

Helsinki, batterieswerentdead + Ampersand, Dingwalls, 13.03.08

Helsinki - batterieswerentdead and Ampersand, Dingwalls 13.03.08 from nearer dark on Vimeo.

Helsinki's set was beautiful, batterieswerentdead was epic, my film doesn't really do it justice.

I did temporarily know the full name of Matt's wah pedal, but I forgot to do the writing things down thing. It's the one he's using on Ampersand.

If you're reading this before Sunday 27 April, get yourself down to Victoria Park, Hackney, for the Love Music Hate Racism Carnival that day - Helsinki are playing, there's tons of other great music too, it's going to be a very special day. And also a very important day - find out more here: LMHR Carnival 2008.

Helsinki, Je t'emmene au vent + Ribtickling, Dingwalls, 13.03.08

Helsinki - Je t'emmene au vent and Ribtickling, Dingwalls 13.03.08 from nearer dark on Vimeo.

Drew McConnell and friends - see note on post below. Je t'emmene au vent is a Louise Attaque song. Sorry again for background noise, but it's the tradeoff with standing further back to avoid the reverb off the PA - although I seem to have picked some of that up too.

Helsinki played an excellent show - part of which I missed due to travel vagaries. Yes I did kick myself.

Helsinki, Delivery + Cologne Hotel, Dingwalls, 13.03.08

Helsinki - Delivery and Cologne Hotel, Dingwalls, 13.03.08 from nearer dark on Vimeo.

Helsinki have a pretty fluid line-up - Drew McConnell has a large revolving cast of wandering troubadours, and the shows are very special, whoever is up there with him. This particular night he was supporting Kid Harpoon, and had borrowed his drummer, and had Lord Large on keys. And Matt Park on guitar, who's a regular fixture.

Apologies for uber-chatty neighbours. No, I don't understand either. I tend to go to gigs to see the bands, rather than to conduct loud soirees during people's sets.

Albert Newton, Bar Sonic, Deptford 08.03.08

Albert Newton, Bar Sonic, Deptford 08.03.08 from nearer dark on Vimeo.

Albert Newton are Charles Hayward (drums), Harry Beckett (trumpet), Pat Thomas (keyboards) and John Edwards (double bass)

They play amazing experimental improvisational jazz, and if you ever get a chance to see them, you should jump at it.

Bar Sonic is lovely but quite dark, particularly around the parts of the stage where the drums and keyboard were, so I had to do rather a lot of fidgeting with the video, and then used the filter that looks like a succession of Blue Note covers. Well, it does to me...

Charles Hayward has a myspace here. He's a bit of a genius.

The Johnsons, Afraid Of The Dark, Death By Stereo, New Cross Inn, 06.03.08

The Johnsons - Afraid Of The Dark from nearer dark on Vimeo.

The Johnsons are amazing live. Pussycat has an incredible voice, Spoony supplies rumbling bass (which he's also playing on the soundtrack to the new Joe Meek film - cool or what), there are razorsharp quiffs n' riffs from Jake, and thundering drummingness from Antz with the hair. This song is Afraid Of The Dark, and you may well be.

Peter Doherty, The Man Who Would Be King, There She Goes + Fuck Forever, Rhythm Factory 28.02.08

Peter Doherty Rhythm Factory 28.02.08 The Man Who Would Be King, There She Goes and FF from nearer dark on Vimeo.

"...twisting and turning to northern soul..." that's a beautifully evocative lyric, and there's some really nice guitar going on here, too.

That was a wonderful night, and for all that we looked as though we'd gone 10 rounds with a sauna and lost, I think most of us would do it pretty much every night of the week if we could. Well, if he played Sheepskin Tearaway and Breck Road Lover a bit more often, like...

Peter Doherty, Hooray For The 21st Century, Rhythm Factory, 28.02.08

Peter Doherty Rhythm Factory 28.02.08 Hooray For The 21st Century from nearer dark on Vimeo.

Peter Doherty, For Lovers, Rhythm Factory, 28.02.08

Peter Doherty Rhythm Factory 28.02.08 For Lovers from nearer dark on Vimeo.

One day I'm going to put the wrong embed code in one of these posts, and I'll be waffling on about something completely different from what you're watching. Ah, it's the juxtaposition.

There's a lighterless lighter salute from the crowd, and for some reason I started filming the two shadowmen on the back wall. It was very very hot in there.

Enjoy anyway - it's a beautiful song, despite the vagaries of the lens, and I really prefer the stripped-down acoustic to the released version myself.

Peter Doherty, The Delaney + Death On The Stairs, Rhythm Factory, 28.02.08

Peter Doherty Rhythm Factory 28.02.08 The Delaney, Death On The Stairs from nearer dark on Vimeo.

Viddy well all the little screens capturing The Delaney. I have definitely been the paying the cab fare over type in the past. Theoretically I'm comparatively sensible these days. Right.

It was baking hot in there too - Peter looks as though he's melting a bit, so were the rest of us. Particularly people with thick jackets on and one arm stuck up in the air. And a small bottle of water wedged between their knees to avoid passing out. I did say "comparatively sensible".

Peter Doherty, Clementine, Rhythm Factory, 28.02.08

Peter Doherty Rhythm Factory 28.02.08 Clementine from nearer dark on Vimeo.

He doesn't play Clementine very often either. I seriously love RF shows.

Peter Doherty, Pipedown, Rhythm Factory, 28.02.08

Peter Doherty Rhythm Factory 28.02.08 Pipedown from nearer dark on Vimeo.

Pipedown - so crowd go nuts, camera goes nuts, yadda yadda. This song always gets a full-throttled and full-throated response wherever it's played. And he did the No Fun bit.

A friend of mine said that the result of this sort of filming was a perfect illustration of Brownian motion, or something along those lines. I know what he means.

Oh, and if you hadn't noticed, there's a button in the bottom right corner of the little film screen that lets you go full screen. Yes. It works for all the vimeo vids, but I don't think there's an option to do that with youtube ones. Maybe.

Peter Doherty, Dilly Boys, Rhythm Factory, 28.02.08

Peter Doherty, Rhythm Factory 28.02.08 Dilly Boys from nearer dark on Vimeo.

"She's the sweetest girl oh, the swee-... Oh shit! You know what, I was supposed to pick someone up on the way to the gig..." Exits stage right to make phone call. Bless.

Peter Doherty, Merry Go Round, Rhythm Factory, 28.02.08

Peter Doherty Rhythm Factory 28.02.08 Merry Go Round from nearer dark on Vimeo.

"It was the first one of the day/It was the last one of the night..."

Beautiful song, and a real treat to hear it live, as it doesn't happen as often as one might like. Unfortunately some people near me thought it was perfect fodder for talking loudly over. You'd think they could just go off to the bar or something if they don't know a song, or they don't like it, or they've got terribly important things to say that are louder than the artist that everyone else has paid to see. And if they really prefer to chat, why in f**kery have they paid £20 each to do so? See that poor kid freezing on the pavement outside a sold out RF? That's his place you've taken, chatty person.

Meanwhile my camera seems to be going nuts, which was probably me trying to avoid chatty persons. Bah.

That aside, it's very beautiful. Enjoy.

Peter Doherty, Vertigo, Up The Bracket, What A Waster, Albion, Rhythm Factory 28.02.08

Peter Doherty Rhythm Factory 28.02.08 Vertigo, Up The Bracket, What A Waster, Albion from nearer dark on Vimeo.

The mass crowd singalong to Vertigo and continuing guitar lead weirdness provokes a broad grin and a mock hissy fit, and a "f-ckin' Rhythm Factory". And you can see how nuts everyone was going at the start of Up The Bracket by the amount of exciting ceiling footage. Oh, it was a brilliant night, it really was. And it's quite a nice characterful ceiling, really. And at least the audio doesn't vanish when Peter does. And there are occasionally two shadow men on the wall behind him, which is rather nice. And What A Waster - looks like I was getting knocked for six rather a lot there, but it was so worth it. And Albion - fascinating fact: there's a teacup being held aloft, which belonged to one of Red Roots, who were supporting, and the guy who's holding it up is called Lascaux Man. And that, and the high-pitched "Liverpyool!" aside - Albion is still one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

This was the third night of that particular stint at the Rhythm Factory, and it was pretty much right after the European dates finished, which were either side of the Arena tour and that other run of Rhythm Factory dates in December where everyone got flu, and Brixton was only a couple of weeks before this lot of RF dates, and there were other NME dates around that, probably followed by the last set of Euro dates (yes, I could look it up, but I'm busy writing this), so you'd have forgiven Peter if he was feeling a bit knackered by the time of this show, really, and wanted a bit of a quiet one. Except he's revelling in it, thoroughly enjoying it, and it's a brilliant night.

Peter Doherty, Ha Ha Wall + Baddies Boogie, Rhythm Factory 28.02.08

Peter Doherty Rhythm Factory 28.02.08 Ha Ha Wall and Baddies Boogie from nearer dark on Vimeo.

That guitar lead was still causing a few problems, but the Ha Ha Wall is still such a beautiful song. There's this forest of arms and hands and heads and phones and occasional faces, and it's like this giant mobile picture frame at times. And there's a huge singalong to Baddies Boogie.

Peter Doherty, Pipey McGraw, Rhythm Factory 28.02.08

Peter Doherty Rhythm Factory 28.02.08 Pipey McGraw from nearer dark on Vimeo.

It's all heads and arms and cameras and hands and ceiling - and then Peter appears in the middle of it all. And has some problems with his guitar lead, hence the odd static noise and his expression when they happen. And "there's not one single thing I'd change... except maybe the lead". This was a fantastic show, and I was really glad I took my camera and kept filming.

Peter Doherty, Last Post On The Bugle, Rhythm Factory 28.02.08

Peter Doherty Last Post On The Bugle, Rhythm Factory 28.02.08 from nearer dark on Vimeo.

I went out with my camera again two nights later - I'd been kicking myself for not going on the Wednesday as well, as by all reports it was even better than the Tuesday show, but I'd attempted to be sensible and had stayed in. Which was fairly unproductive, as I mainly spent the time sulking. It's possibly slightly undignified when adults get into the mindset that goes "but all my friends are going and I'm not and it's not fair!", particularly when it's a blatant fib. But heck, adults can still sulk.

I had also kicked myself for missing songs and bits of songs on the Tuesday, so this time I pretty much kept the camera running, apart from cutting it briefly between songs sometimes to save the battery. I was still very much learning how to do this, and there will be hands, heads and hats between the lens and the stage, because - heck, there were other people there, innit?

Peter Doherty, Ha Ha Wall + Fuck Forever, Rhythm Factory 26.02.08

On FF, every cameraphone in the place seems to magically appear, crowd goes nuts, I go sideways, my lens goes roofwards. I'm clinging to "atmospheric" as a descriptive, it works for me. And at some point Peter's mic stand temporarily vanishes, and a kid appears next to him and makes off with his flag.

"Yeah I know, this is the original..."

There are many things I love about FF, the only thing that I don't is that it tends to signify the end of the set. Except for the time when he played it first, which was a little alarming until he carried on and played something else.

Peter Doherty, Killamangiro + Beg Steal Or Borrow, Rhythm Factory, 26.02.08

At the point during Killamangiro where Peter starts chatting, my arm looks as though it's got the DT's. It hadn't, but I think it was finding this standing like the Statue Of Liberty business a slightly unwelcome novelty. My friends have come up with some interesting solutions ("just buy a monopod - they're only £100-ish..."(advice from a proper cameraman, who apparently has one of those disposable income-type things, and also presumably has never filmed from the middle of a bouncy crowd)), and an exciting contraption involving a sling and a neckbrace - that could be good for the sympathy vote, actually, and might possibly stop people banging into the camera, although I doubt it. I thought I might just try a bit of weight training, although I guess I'd have to do both arms, or I'll look like Popeye...

Back to the music, and "in the eyes of the cruel and unwise" has a lot of resonance at the moment. Everyone has an opinion, very few have a clue.

Beg Steal Or Borrow will always remind me of the summer of 06 - well, from the Paradiso recording onwards - and Get Loaded and running around after Big Issue sellers. Oh, and Jonathan Ross and Harry Potter. Oh, and you know what I said about staying mute during filming? It is really, really hard during the "get youuuu in the caaaarrrr" bit.

Peter Doherty, Carry On Up The Morning, Rhythm Factory 26.02.08

You see the complete lack of picture at the very beginning of this clip? That would be the aforementioned forest of tall people. Peter does start to make an appearance a few seconds in, though. Unfortunately there's a small sound cut, which I think may have been due to me temporarily giving up on being able to film anything at all, and then thinking that this song is so beautiful that any footage is better than no footage, right?

Carry On Up The Morning first saw the earlight of day on the Stookie + Jim demos, also known as Bumfest, which surfaced in November 2006, and were put up for free download on Peter's official website, frenchdogblues.com. A full band version later appeared on Shotter's Nation, the second Babyshambles album. Whenever an acoustic demo is translated to full band, it tends to engender heated debate on the forums. My personal take on it is that we have so many different versions of songs available that we can each choose to listen to whichever one we each personally prefer. As long as we also buy the released versions, as the band need to eat, right?

Peter Doherty, Death On The Stairs, Rhythm Factory, 26.02.08

Actually one of the strangest things about filming like this is having to detach - you might be watching one of your favourite artists, but you have to concentrate on what your camera's doing and make sure it's following what's happening onstage, and you really can't start forgetting what you're doing and singing along when the rest of the crowd does. Or sort of jigging around a bit - dancing would really be stretching a descriptive point - or turning round and forgetting that you're filming if someone starts trying to have a conversation with your back.

So you try to avoid standing near any of your friends who might get a bit chatty or start dancing into you enthusiastically. Or bellowing. It's really quite a disciplined art, if you can call it that.

Hi - are you still with me?

Good good. A very small recap - as you may not feel like scrolling all that way down a few inches to that really long post explaining what I'm doing and why I'm here.

My name's nearerdark. Pleased to meet you. I like filming music. I started filming way back at the end of February 2008, so that's probably a whole six and a half weeks ago, or something. The posts below this one are of footage taken the first time I used my camera. So if it seems a little shaken and withdrawn, there is a reason for it. It'll get better.

There are tons and tons of updates to come - I have a heck of a lot of footage to add, but I've been up all night and I have sensible studying stuff to do. And anything technical always takes a little longer than one thinks it's going to. I won't bore you with the details of tonight's exciting adventures in technology, although do feel free to comment if you need an insomnia cure, and I'll gladly fill you in on video conversion problems and other such fun stuff.

And don't be a stranger, y'hear? Danke schon, merci and things.

Peter Doherty, Unbilotitled, Rhythm Factory 26.02.08

Unbilotitled has remained an incredibly beautiful song throughout all its many incarnations.

Stronger than the walls...

Peter Doherty, Rhythm Factory 26.02.08 Back From The Dead

... and sometimes he has trouble reading his own writing, too. Ek Rom The Dod it is, then.

See previous post for excuses for imperfect filming, and this really was the first time I'd attempted to use my camera. It's a Sony Handycam by the way, I may not have mentioned that.

And this really was a great gig, despite my mithering over attempting to film it. I hope I did mention that.

First attempt - Peter Doherty at the Rhythm Factory, 26.02.08

So the first time I tried filming was Tuesday February 26, 2008 at the Rhythm Factory. That's in Whitechapel, London, England, if you're not from round those parts. It's fairly small, with a capacity of about 400, it's quite dark and I guess it's maybe a bit scruffy, but as a result it's quite homely. It's friendly, the staff are really nice, the sound's good and a load of us go down together and huddle on the pavement having smoking breaks between sets. Or watch sets between smoking breaks, maybe. Or stand around chatting and keep going in to check whether we need to be in there yet. It's one of my favourite places, actually, venuewise.

So this particular night I'd taken my camera on its very first outing. I can be a bit of a perfectionist, which is fairly daft really, all things considered, as I can also be anything but. But I wanted to get absolute perfect footage on my very first attempt, and also to get really good sound - which means standing a fair way back from the stage, to avoid weird reverb thing from the PA, and standing a fair way back tends to mean rather obscured views.

Because Peter isn't the only very tall person at his shows - a whole tribe of other very tall people also turn out, and they tend to stand in front of me. Frequently wearing hats. And however much I try, some of those hats are going to bounce in front of the lens. And a lot of other heads and elbows and shoulders and things. And I'm not that tiny, I'm just quite a long way under 6 foot, but occasionally at gigs I can feel like a very small plant struggling for light in the midst of a very tall forest.

So I kept turning my camera on, filming a bit, losing Peter in the lens, giving up, aiming dark looks at the backs of the forest of tallness in front of me, and trying again. When I got home, although it had been a beautiful gig, I was feeling slightly dispirited at my lack of total abject brilliance on my first attempt at filming, but I captured the video to AVI and started watching it back, after panicking slightly as every 5 minutes of AVI ate up an entire 1GB of hard drive. (It's been WMV all the way since, although I'm planning on getting one of those 1TB external drives very soon, so I can play around with different formats and take the load off my laptop a bit.)

But the footage I'd got looked and sounded pretty good, and the bursts of suddenly obscured vision and consequent random camera movement were actually quite atmospheric, and however annoying some of the crowd chatter during sensitive acousticery could be, there was still something there that was really worth watching and listening to - and at some point while I was doing this, I got hooked. I seem to have learned very early on to make excessive use of the zoom function to try to get around the obstructed view problems, although I'm not quite sure quite how long I took to realise that I could gain a heck of a lot of extra height by standing like the Statue of Liberty and just keeping an eye on my screen. Probably a couple of minutes or so...

Anyway, enough of me wurbling. Here's What A Waster from that night, and yes, sorry, the very beginning is indeed missing.