NME says the libertines are the most culturally significant band in the UK today (or something) - thoughts?

significance = "The state or quality of being significant" e.g consensus held be a large number people belonging to sub-culture

Cultural = culture "patterns, traits, and products considered as the expression of a particular period, class, community, or population"

e.g Joy division 1979/1980 [Joy Division albums sold well throughout the 80s and become an era defining band for many]
e.g The Smiths 1983 - 1987 [massive suport: NME/Melody Maker/ Sounds - readers & writers]
e.g Tricky - Maxinquaye [defined trip hop sound of the mid 90s]

Tricky: Maxinquaye was more a landmark album compared to Massive Attack: Protection

The Stereophonics are NOT culturally significant ;-)

Sorry, you're both wrong, Portishead was the album that people tried (and failed) to copy the most.

Body: Ok, so my good friend turned me onto this new band The Libertines. And may I say... freakin' AWESOME!! It has been so long since I heard songs sooo good and sooo rockin' that I have to blast it and actually jump around and dance and shake my booty! Seriously, this band rocks, and I mean that cool old fashioned funk edgey raw type of rock, with the catchiest hooks, but pure music all the way thru. An album that will make your head bop and foot tap involuntarily, for sure. Everyone should run out and buy it NOW!! You will NOT be dissappointed!

best selling single in UK last year - Busted
best selling album in UK last year - Coldplay

HI DERE

significance = "The state or quality of being significant" e.g consensus held be a large number people belonging to sub-culture

Cultural = culture "patterns, traits, and products considered as the expression of a particular period, class, community, or population"

Coldplay and Busted are more culturally significant than grime or whatever. Bland Retro music can be culturally significant too.

i should say though, that while wiley and dizzee are very exciting to me,
so are the libertines. theyre one of the few bands who DO *excite* me.

With NO direct weekly competition to compete against: NME has free reign to control a certain type of agenda. [e.g i don't see Kerrang as a direct competitor - as it mainly focuses on a niche: loud rock music primarily aimed at teenagers]

Also online in term's of music NEWS - there are a very few UK websites that publish original/ breaking music news - throughout the week - that have a significant readership base.

If a publisher had the guts to launch a diverse music weekly backed up with a well resourced daily updated website - with higher expectations - only then would the NME be under pressure to change.

Until this happens NME/ NME.com - have unfortunately the brand awareness - to a certian extent - to control the mass media agenda for [rock] music in Britain.

I carry on the spirit of opposition [re: Melody Maker/ Sounds] to the NME's bullshit agenda on my blog in 2004 - and Razorlight, Keane, Libertines, Kings of Leon, Jet, The Ordinary Boys and hundreds of other NME poxy approved bands - don't register !

OTM sickmouthy. wiley is a producer, not an MC.

If Wiley and the Libs exist in different worlds (which they don't) then why bother harshing on the Libs for innovativeness? It's guitar rock, and there's not all that much leeway within it.

x-post; yeah they do and I do.

Libertines still shit AND irrelevant to the lives of everyone I know.

(x-post x3)

4 xpost.

because as much as the NME insists on the need for this 'great white hope' of it's beloved rock n' roll, the 'underground' need their heroes too based on the concept of the hardcore continuum (British dance genres interloping and evolving in line from a vague notion of black kids and white kids raving together on drugs) and the sound of Dizzee and Wiley seems to be the current manifestation of that and this is considered relevant by those who believe in that sort of thing as antidote/antithesis of mainstream entertainment (yer Sugababes)

next week: Bark Psychosis comeback with a new album

Neurosis have an outstanding new album

forthcoming 2004 albums from: Cult of Luna, Isis, Solefald, Mastodon, Ulver, Red Harvest, Ephel Duath - will all push the limits with expansive challenging rock music

not as much as it's about recognising the cultural sig of 'movements' and 'subcultures' no

Although I don't really buy into the whole Libertines thing, I think it's pretty clear that they've managed to articulate a style/attitude/myth/whathaveyou in a manner that actually appears to be significant to a large amount of people. More than any other band around right now that I can think of. (Obviously, Keane/Coldplay don't count because it's all about the songs - actually, the Libertines aren't that much about the songs at all, they about the fandom, the pose, the legend, the idea. Easy to hate them for it, but I'd find it hard to argue against its 'significance'. Whatever that really means.)

well yes like you said it's objective and i agree but acid house, rave, britpop, drum n' bass all considered important movements in UK music and it's now a question of whether artists like the Libertines or Wiley can add themselves to that legacy. to be honest i'm not convinced they (or the genres and attitudes they represent) really can.

What does the composition of this year's Mercury shortlist say about "significance"?

Britpop was horseshit mostly

when it goes pop?

Splooge - quantify when it goes 'pop'.

Album or single?

Roni Size was gentrification, but jungle was fucking massive in '94, it just didn't chart very much. It was a huge musical subculture.

i've listened to "Mother" all the way through! There was a nice post by Marcello about it on his blog recently.

a Dizzee prog LP is U+K!

i like the first Libertines LP. AleXTC pretty much OTM on this thread.

How can you quantify something being massive if it has no chart presence? We're going purely on, what, club movements in London (and Bristol), yeah?

Blue DO resonate! They resonate with the people who are buying their music instead of the Libertines, inc. me.

don't answer that!

I like the Libertines. I also think the NME should cover no other music except indie. Who buys the NME to read about grime anyway? And don't give me all that "if NME hyped Superpitcher as much as they do The Strokes then everyone would be into them", because I don't buy it.

MATT DC IS FUCKING OTM WITH HIS COMMENTS THAT THE NME SHOULD ONLY COVER INDIE.

as i've said before, the happy NMEdium of the mid 90s (ironically at the height of both Britpop and jungle amongst other things) strikes me as best - there was a reasonable coverage and treatment of dance but really it should've been more balanced (ala last years of Record Mirror inc. humour)

nick -- which blue track?

the same things that boy bands ALWAYS resonate with + fucking awesome tunes

Nick - you have to download Bubblin', it's the best Blue song yet.

Only if there's some guidance, much as I hate to say it. Middle-class kids are fucking sheep. cf. a co-DJ at the new year's party I attended, bag contents: 'Elephant', 'Room On Fire' [you get teh picture] and... 'Teh Love Below'. And no other music made by non-guitar-wielding non-male non-whites. At all.

Unless someopne like Taylor Parkes argues for it, middle-class kids will continue to write off what those music channels show as fake and bling and shiny. Most white middle-class kids I know would be outraged at my fondness for eg 'Ignition (Remix)' and 'Yeah'. ILX is a fucking one-off.

NRK OTM.

well it gets lonely in those affluent suburbs

a thousand frustrated conversations with imbecile students who thought I was joking when I said that "Yeah" was amazing to thread

by the by have you noticed how EMPIRE magazine has so fewer words now then it did ten years ago? and recall Ewing's comments on Smash Hits magazine a few weeks back too. How much of this is offset by today's 12 year olds reading the blogosphere?? ;)

Of course, it's been well docmented that NME only ever puts white folk on the cover, because that's inevitably what sells copies - but hey, that's indie audiences for you.

yeh you need to go back to the 80s for this it seems (argh not this again!)

too much always seemed made of the 'who's on the cover' issue? i never bought a music magazine because of who was on the cover. i bought Muzik every month for several years because i knew it was a good read/guide to what was going on with a large chunk of the music i loved. this also true of NME for a time - tho i was pleased when they put people like Daft Punk (in masks obv.) on the front. i don't suppose Dizzee ever did make the cover?

anyway, middle classers arent the only ones who think theyre too smart to listen to the r or usher, i know a dozen 'black music' fans who cant stand them either.

its a shame todays middle class suburban counties kids arent like those of 30-40 years ago who liked 'black music'. or maybe they are, and everyones just not seeing it.

friend working as a cashier in late-night budgens in affluent surburb.

gang of youths come in and ask for cigarettes.

friend asks for i.d.

one of the youths goes: I.D.? WHAT I.D? YOU DON'T THINK I'M OF AGE WITH ALL THIS BLING?

hahaha.. he was wearing like cheap-ass hennys stuff.

don't know the relevance but i suppose i never do.

You can't compare them to Tricky (who shouldn't be relevant to anyone on account of the fact he's a thug and a prick) or Dizzy or whomever, because the people who will embrace indie bands are unlikely to embrace them. Sure there will be exceptions, but as a general rule it's not going to happen.

Unlike a Chris Martin, The Libertines seem to be genuinelly troubled/ speak about the reality of their own lives and present a really strong front on stage. They are also intent on breaking down the barriers between audience and band ala Morrissey and I think that's really cool. This is not an Oasis/ U2 thing where the band want the fans to stand in admiration.

I expect they will sell loads of the new album and I feel that they will eventually be seen as pioneers of a new movement. The sudden rise of Franz Ferdinand in the UK has - I would say - come from a lot of people becoming interested in indie rock again following The Strokes and The Libs.

Now notice how The Strokes have largely become insignificant to NME.

Like I said to Norman (Pash) some time ago - if you want to whine and cry at me for supposed misogyny or sexism on a MUSIC BOARD you are barking up the wrong tree. If threads about whom you'd like to shag bother you then you'd better throw all your CDs in the bin, because I don't think there are many male band members out there who haven't exploited their share of groupies.

As Bill Hicks said - if you hate drugs so much then get rid of your music collection. It's a bummer isn't it? You'd only be left with The Smiths and The Manics, and if you take out the groupies then you'd have to just listen to The Smiths and nothing else.

this thread really makes me loathe the NME.

I can't comprehend being disillusioned with music pre-Libertines, or indeed ever. I don't think music comes in waves of goodness/shitness... at any given moment, there's always LOADS of people to get excited about.

and the prospect of finding an iconic band who looked cool as fuck, were interesting to follow and had that X factor that makes an idol.

And back to Nick's earlier question - why not the Sugababes?

Now notice how The Strokes have largely become insignificant to NME.

There is nothing in this post that is right

Those jackets tho', are absolutely lovely. Is that where the 'cultural significance' lies?

Lex - I like The Sugababes but people don't go hay-wire over them and they don't EFFECT people's lives in the way The Libs do/ have done. There might be music out there that you and ten other people have always found exciting, but - for me and many others - there's something great about a community of dedicated fans that really get into a band. A gig becomes almost like a community experience and it's as if everyone is on the same length. You don't get that very often. The Libs have managed this for (I would say) the first time since Suede or Pulp making the NME's claim for them to be correct.

They excite large groups of people which some obscure band on the "toilet bowl" label that sells maybe 200 copies nationwide simply does not... and which few bands that fill stadiums even manage to do (I saw a stadium show by the Manics circa "This is your Truth" and the audience was as bored by it all as the band evidently was).

Watch their audience when they appear on CD:UK or TOTP! I can't think of any way in which the Sugababes don't affect people's lives where the Libertines do.

There might be music out there that you and ten other people have always found exciting

I am not and will never be talking about obscure indie shit, I'm talking about the great music and exciting artists in the charts under everyone's noses.

but - for me and many others - there's something great about a community of dedicated fans that really get into a band. A gig becomes almost like a community experience and it's as if everyone is on the same length. You don't get that very often. The Libs have managed this for (I would say) the first time since Suede or Pulp making the NME's claim for them to be correct.

Oh that's just bullshit, there are always bands and artists like this! PJ Harvey, Tori Amos, Rufus Wainwright... anyone with a halfway-obsessed internet following.

if i wanted to argue for the merits of the thread title i might venture libs represent for many a return to grassroots nu-folk ill-ease of perceived big city manipulation etc etc. you could say this was always a rocktrait, always implied thru the ages in "real" as said above and yeah ok but perhaps libs are bit more c/overt, one can reach out and touch them, secret gigs, blah a true fan will always know the Truth etc. and i'd think this was true in all sorts of genres right now, and there were a few nu-folk threads that discussed it too. even that horrid bling rap music has developed tendencies, viz mixtape explosion and what have you

"I haven't read NME since they hyped the Strokes. I knew the editor and told him it was all a bunch of shit but he just gave me the Libertines' first demos and was all excited, but half their songs turned out to be bad Jam ripoffs. Paul Weller slept with my mom's best friend. Whatever. Like I'd tolerate even one Style Council song on my ipod. Like anyone has even paid attention to guitar rock after Oasis fucked it all up for us. I can't believe NME thinks the Libs are culturally significant - a new low for rock journalism? Whatever. It all went to shit in '83."

PJ Harvey, Tori Amos (whom I adore) and Rufus Wainwright? Hmm, yes they do inspire stage invasions and a whole new way of dressing among their fans don't they?

*Shed Seven
*Cast
*Ocean Colour Scene
*Space
*Powder
*Me Me Me
*Menswe@ar
*Rialto
*Catatonia
*Northern Uproar

If you want to argue teenybopper groups then why stop at The Sugababes (and their second album is damn fine BTW). Why not argue that because Boyzone cause girls to faint they, in fact, are the most important thing since Elvis?

I like none of those bands, C-Man. Stop arguing with third-hand received wisdom and try and actually use your own ears. In many ways you're a unique voice on ILM, but amongst 'indie fans' your blurred monotone is as common as muck.

The Libertines are drug addicts but, y'know, that shouldn't have an effect on how people view their music.

Hmmmmm.

culturally significance? for british kids? definitely. no doubts. i've got scientific proof!

I was one of the first people to review them outside London, I think, and I thought they were great, if very stylised and obviously ephemeral. Lo and behold the new album is a boring trudge.

Calum (and Doomie) - do you like Turbonegro? I think I get a lot of the same things from Turbonegro as other people do from The Libertines.

am not coming off as a raging fan. just stating knowledge on observations, stats and facts.

why is Tricky a thug? because his bodyguard attacked an NME journalist once? or have other things happened since? we've had this argument before but thuggish behaviour of an artist (and it's happened since time immemorium with artists of all genres, genders and races) does not render their work irrelevant or worthless. as much as Tupac or Courtney Love or Bjork or Jack White or Dizzee Rascal or Phil Spector or Liam G or Cheryl Tweedy or Pete Doherty have been involved in some sort of agrressive incident at some point in their pop careers they're all still VIP.

i like the idea that the Libertines are inspiring people to dress a certain way. Like Slipknot or something (arf).

One would think that cultural significance would go hand in hand with success to an extent.

I don't even know how the Libertines dress! I suspect that this rabid fanbase is semi-mythical at best.

Korn are disgustingly profligate fuckers of pneumatic porn stars, however; The Libertines record their records with Mick Jones, who probably wears boxing gloves at the mixing desk, and knock up Lisa Moorish in pub toilets (probably). I always assumed it was the "feel them. TOUCH THEM" thing that attracted people to the Libertines, the idea that they were within reach and actually WANTED to talk to all their little devotees.

Muse are probably more cult. signif. than The Libertines, surely? I see WAY more people with Muse tops than dressed like Libertines.

Yeah, but they sell more records and they've been around longer. Which just brings us back to the unsolvable argument upthread.

-- the neurotic awakening of s (steve...), July 23rd, 2004.

These two posts make for distressing reading together

Erm....

[img src="http://img7.exs.cx/img7/9611/pete-d-at-charlotte.jpg"]

Or maybe you only remember their tired Sgt. Pepper jackets OR the incredible leather jacket with just my skimpy skagged up body underneath! Daring! Stylish! Tight jeans! Boots! Oh. They look precisely like the "we really really care about style and how rock/indie we look at all times - how painstakingly scruffy does my hair look? Should I buy smaller, tighter womens clothes?" indie dullards. Even Pete's "I'm ill and on smack" pictures just look like a fucking pose. As do his further adventure in rehab.

Next person I see at the indie disco with a fucking Sgt. Pepper jacket gets shot (because I'm real) and it'll be the libs fault. I'm real, yo.

[Buffalo Stan is 32]

I like Muse a lot. I've been listening to "Absolution" a great deal. I might even like it more than any "Radiohead" album - save perhaps for "The Bends". I don't think they effect people on the same level as The Libertines though.

I think the cultural significance has to do with changing the musical environment for the better and inspiring devotees in large, dedicated numbers who feel they are all part of something. Sure you could make the arguement for Korn or Snow Patrol, if it makes you feel better. If this arguement was 20 years ago and about The Smiths, no doubt people on here would say "they're not important at all and Duran Duran and Van Halen have big followers too".

Now that reasoning all looks a bit silly doesn't it?

P.S. Remamber that fellow from Fame Academy dressed in the Sgt Pepper's/ Libertines get up?

What, the reasoning of the argument you've just imagined in your head?

Turbonegro? If they mean anything to you then your nuts.

They mean a great deal to my nuts, thanksferaskin...

I think Muse are probably even worse than The Libertines.

P.S. For someone who hates sexism and misogyny you sure picked two corking bands there you silly sod. Ha ha!

P.S. For someone who hates sexism and misogyny you sure picked two corking bands there you silly sod. Ha ha!

And you're a card carrying lefty, right?

But...

Rock on Duran Duran and Van Halen!!

Nice to see you wear your morals on your sleeve then.

(PS I fixed a puncture on this kid's bmx bike yesterday. HE WAS THE EXACT IMAGE OF YOU. It really fucking freaked me out.)

did whoever wrote the thing in NME attempt to answer these questions. Or is none of that as important as the 'quick fix' and just enjoying the 'now' - which I can understand the merit of, but if that's all it's about then the hyperbole and using terms like 'culturally significant' seem all the more daft. A great pop song (from whatever artist) will always represent that 'right now' feeling better than anything else anyway.

Libertines and Dizzee Rascal = not household names are they...the only claim you can make to their cultural significance is the movements they can be attached to. it's NME's and other media's job to do this so they think, but it can only ever be presenting opinion rather than truth can't it?

Before long they sounded like the bloated cokeheads they were... The Libertines are TORTURED POETZ (they should be, etc) and one of them is on HEROIN* but they KICKED HIM OUT SO HE MIGHT SAVE HIMSELF

*what does "being on heroin" sound like musically? Short of being able to hear the musicians groan pitifully and shit themselves in the studio I don't know if I could identify it

I'm pretty sure they were more "fey" (which is generally preferable) than "twee," but I might be wrong.

Chuck, I'm Scottish. Either you are American or from London to confuse the UK with England. Please cut it out.

I've never heard Up The Bracket but this is probably very true. Massive point in the Libertines' favour - they're not Oasis. It could be worse, it could be 1995 all over again.

Just.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Wooooohooooooohahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaa. Heeeeheeeheeeheeeheeeeeeeee. Oohahahahaha. (Wipes eyes).

Hahahhhahahha if only you knew. I have friends who were at the so-called "oasis riot" at newcastle riverside back in the day. see that paper bag? tougher than the gallaghers!

Really, how old are you? If you're a Sleeper fan you must be at least 25. Jesus.

But maybe people don't want to be told that much about their own lives? And see the Libertines as an escape?

I like The Sugababes but people don't go hay-wire over them and they don't EFFECT people's lives in the way The Libs do/ have done.
Watch their audience when they appear on CD:UK or TOTP! I can't think of any way in which the Sugababes don't affect people's lives where the Libertines do.

But the majority of the audience are *girls*. Calum doesn't like girls.

"...they bring out the poet in people, uniting that legion of lost romantics drawn to the artist currently being swallowed beneath a sea of smack withing pete docherty"

made me want to knock the writer flat on his fucking back. In the end, I couldn't hate or even dislike the band, even though the sound like probably my second least favourite british band ever, but the fukcing bullshit hype that surrounds them? You know, I mean americanb new-age artists have been playing internet-advertised house gigs for how many years? How long have fucking marillion been hawking themselves on the web, and pushing their band and their fans as some kind of community? But no, in order to have any meaning, it has to be yet more 1/2 baked punk revivalism. It's fucking sad.

That NME quote is a fucking disgrace.

x-post

Yeah, but a band who combines that sense of intimate community with actual marketing potential is a very rare thing indeed. Devil's advocacy in full effect, you understand, but that's how it is

Are you seriously saying that DD weren't literate? They had a lot more going for them than hairspray, eyeliner and billowing shirts. (OK, so "Girls on Film" isn't Shakespeare....)

Writing is only that person's particular opinion. A lot of "fucking writers" prolly love DD just as much. (If all writers loved the same bands, where's the fun in arguing?)

P.S. Ned was at a Placebo concert. Placebo Vs Libertines? No contest.

sounds like it's YOU who is upset that some people may actually disagree with you and, worse, are capable of arguing why much better than you can.

You can't blame him surely?

1/oasis play at newcastle riverside

2/they are piss, as in he sound like they can barely be bothered playing.

3/a person, unknown to the audience, gets up onstage and punches noel gallagher.

there are 2 theories extant as to who this person is:
a/ someone from sunderland
b/ an associate of the band who has been put up to it b/c they can't be arsed to play

4/oasis leave the stage, grumbling
(exit, pursued by a mackem haha)

5/ my friends, A BUNCH OF FLOPPY-FRINGED INDIE KIDS, go out to remonstrate w/the band, apologise for the violence, ask them to continue playing.

6/ oasis, en mass, piss themselves with ph34r, get into their van, and drive away at speed, actually crashing their van into a parked car in their haste to get away from the terrifying threat of A BUNCH OF FLOPPY FRINGED INDIE KIDS.

7/ the story of this event has grown in the telling. What is related above = WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

8/ conclusion - oasis = SOFTIES hahahhahaahhahahhahhahahhahahahhahah

all of the floppy fringed indie kids are either friends or aquaintances of mine. I had this plan to interview them all, and write up an article abt the whole event, but meh.

ps. head shirley collins other day. am-in-love!!

And I thought you were married?

I reckon Liam would still chin you mate. He was probably just afraid of getting scurvy from some Geordies. Know what I mean?

The Libertines reunite for 2010 Reading And Leeds Festivals...

http://www.nme.com/news/the-libertines/50432

... and a reported £1.5m

pete-bashing here already:
The Rolling "Pete is Back in the Libertines" thread...

And while the NME waffles on about dull-arsed indie rock, da kids are listening to music that sounds like robots fighting, made by eighteen year-olds in their council estate bedrooms.

― Wooden, Thursday, 22 July 2004 12:29 (5 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

good times, great memories

"I like The Sugababes but people don't go hay-wire over them and they don't EFFECT people's lives in the way The Libs do/ have done."

"Watch their audience when they appear on CD:UK or TOTP!"

if this is the case, bryan adams must REALLY touch people, considering the rapturous response with which I and the rest of the TOTP audience greeted all SIX renditions of one of his dismal latter-day flops.

(sorry for digging up the past...just read through this thread, and the above quote amused me greatly. it's essentially arguing for canned laughter as a marker of cultural significance. but yeah, the libertines and all associated musics are godawful and always were.)

Aren't the Council Estate Bedrooms some shit backpacker rap crew?

Thinking about starting a generic thread for complaining about magazines targetting their core market, not sure what to call it yet. "OMG TEH MNE LIEKS A THING" or something

In my day we used to make dull-arsed indie rock in our council estate bedrooms

da kids I know are equally fond of dull-arsed indie rock AND music that sounds like robots fighting.

I think the nineties revival is going to herald a return to dull-arsed indie rock. kids are going to rediscover what made that style of music so great, but inject it with their own, new dull-arsed ideas.

didn't that already happen in the first half of the '00s?

i wouldn't really call that a revival, more a hangover from '90s dull-arsed indie rock. the tweenies dull-arsed indie rock revival is going to be a sea-change in dull-arsed indie rock stylings.

great. can't wait. I've pencilled it in in my diary.

the fuck? mountains of dull indie rock in the 00s, maybe i just got to these guys first and that's why i love them so. it was nice of them to stop after 2 albums, though.. no need for some gunky uk american idiot thing

Why is it that musos despise songs with key changes, chefs want to stab people who put ketchup on their food and ILM-ers hate the Libertines?
It's obvious the NME were always going to love this band because there was enough soap opera to keep music journos busy for the first half of the decade. Added to that, they looked great on the cover - from Carnaby Street to junkie chic in two albums.
But irritating as it may be (to some), Doherty wrote great anthems and they played them with the excitement of the young Who. They really had something.
Sometimes they veered into cockernee knees up muvver brown territory, but so did Blur, who seem to have been forgiven their sins now.
Just because the NME like them, it dosen't mean you have to hate them.

This band completely passed me by. Can you show me some great anthems played with the excitment of the young Who?

The young These Animal Men maybe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlrSwHHkCoc

Ha-ha. Colonel Poo OTM.

http://www.nme.com/news/the-libertines/50477

The Libertines play guerilla gig together in London

Band reunite in front of the world's media to play pub gig
March 31, 2010

The Libertines played together tonight (March 31) for the first time since announcing their reformation, taking to the stage in London for an impromptu show.

The band were originally supposed to be holiding a press conference at north London pub The Boogaloo to discuss why they decided to reform to play this year's Reading And Leeds Festivals. However, after a 25 minute chat with the press, Pete Doherty, Carl Barat and John Hassall all strapped on guitars and played their first songs as The Libertines since 2004.

The band, with drummer Gary Powell standing in the wings, kicked off with a cover of old standard 'Georgia On My Mind', seaguing the song into 'The Good Old Days' from The Libertines' debut album 'Up The Bracket'.

Doherty and Barat shared vocals - as well as sly winks and jokes - throughout the set, with Hassall also chipping in from time to time. Playing a range of tracks from their career, the band aired the likes of 'Death On The Stairs', 'France' and 'Can't Stand Me Now'.

Band friend 'Rabbi' John Connor - a regular at early Libertines gigs - also joined them for a run through of sea shanty 'Sally Brown'.

After playing a short segment of the solo from 'Time For Heroes', Barat instructed the audience he was "going for a piss", and with that, the rest of his bandmates decided to finish the gig.

Check NME.COM later for video footage of the gig and press conference.

The Libertines played:

'Georgia On My Mind'
'The Good Old Days'
'Music When The Lights Go Out'
'France'
'Death On The Stairs'
'Sally Brown'
'Can't Stand Me Now'
'Time For Heroes'