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.

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.

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.

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, 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, 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, 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, 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.