15/10/08 : DPT at The Roundhouse

I went to see Dirty Pretty Things (the band of Carl Barat, the Libertine who isn't Pete Doherty) at The Roundhouse in Camden last night. I was expecting the band to be shambolic, as they always are, but I wasn't expecting the sound to be as murky and muddy as a large venue, given The Roundhouse's relative intimacy. It was so bad that in place of the usual twin guitar / bass / drums set-up for the majority of the gig you could only hear the rhythm section.

DPT had announced a few days before that they were quitting, which meant I approached the gig with slight disdain - where usually I'd accept them being 'ramshackle' and disorganised, knowing that they were splitting up made me view this as disinterestedness on the part of the band. It also brought into sharp relief how patchy the second album is. Concerts like this serve only to reduce the legacy of Barat's band to a mere footprint in the extended history of The Libertines.

On the positive, I got to go to The Roundhouse, which really is an incredible, historic venue, and the gloomy mood was lifted after my wife found Nikki from Big Brother in the toilets singing along badly to Arctic Monkeys songs.