Recently, the Babyshambles wowed London with another raucous performance showcasing six never-before-heard songs as the headliners for Camden Proud Gallery’s Smash and Grab weekly club night. Their performance was so raucous, in fact, that Babyshambles were almost asked to shut down the show early, as fans continued to surge frantically forward, with some eventually trampling onto the stage by the end of the show.
Kicking off with a newbie that lead singer Pete Doherty introduced as “about a junkie in Portugal – the only country England has never been at war with. Unless you count Australia” was none other than “Fireman”; an angsty garage punk melody driven by its extremely repetitive guitar riff. Later on, the band whipped out their new anti-British National Party song entitled “The BNP Blues”, which was heavily laden with guitar pounding riffs and screaming vocals reminiscent of the Sex Pistols. They even played covers of two popular 80’s songs, including Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” and Pet Shop Boys’ “West End Girls”. Too bad the “Billie Jean” cover wasn’t so hot, but the crowd continued to sing along with them anyway and completely ignored the fact that Doherty was singing off key rather consistently.
The show ended with a bang as a massive portion of the crowd invaded the stage during “Time For Heroes” and “Fuck Forever”; which had the crowd jumping up and down as they sung/shouted in unison alongside Doherty’s off-key vocals. Meanwhile, the venue staff were relentlessly pleading fans to move backwards as Doherty edged them on, aching for them to continue surging forward. Unsurprisingly, per usual everyone in the audience and their mother wanted to be on stage dancing with the band at this performance. Can you blame them?
Care to see a little bit of the action yourself? Then look below for a video of their interesting rendition of “Billie Jean” as well as footage of “Fireman”, “Delivery” and the closing songs, “Time For Heroes” and “Fuck Forever” (sorry for the poor sound quality in advance, folks). Also, if you were hoping to catch these boys on tour, we’ve got dates! Too bad they’re all overseas though.
“Billie Jean (cover)”
“Fireman/Delivery”
“Time For Heroes/Fuck Forever”
Babyshambles 2009 Tour Dates:
12/10 – Sheffield, UK @ O2 Academy
12/12 – Cardiff, UK @ Cardiff University
12/13 – Bath, UK @ Bath Pavilion
12/14 – Liverpool, UK @ O2 Academy
12/15 – Southampton, UK @ Southampton Guildhall
12/17 – Manchester, UK @ Manchester Ritz
12/18 – Glasgow, UK @ Barrowlands
12/19 – Birmingham, UK @ O2 Academy
12/20 – Nottingham, UK @ Rock City