“It’s either the top of the world, or the bottom of the canal” goes Carl Barât’s famous early-days line on what he saw as two possible trajectories for The Libertines. More than twenty years on from that summer, one of the more interesting elements of the band is that it’s still not inarguably clear which one they achieved.
Sure, there was that incredible year, where, despite falling apart at the seams, The Libertines were everywhere and, at times, felt like everything, too. And it was scatty as hell, the kind of garage rock showing so riddled with passionate energy that it almost felt like they forgot how to play their instruments into the bargain, and also like it didn’t actually matter.
You see, instead of going to the top of the world, or the bottom of the canal, The Libertines landed on a third route: a vicious swing and near miss within a foot of hitting both of them at the same time. In 2024, then, we approach a Libertines gig with due trepidation. We’ve seen these things unravel. We’ve also seen this band perform in a way that felt like it defined an entire indie-pop era. The Libertines perform as if Oasis emerged from their council estate clutching a disdain for life itself, several reams of heart-wrenching poetry, an inherent homoeroticism and some fragments of the Blarney Stone tucked in their front pockets.
When they want to be, and they’re together enough to be, The Libertines are one of the finest bands you could hope to see. And tonight is one of those nights. It takes a couple of tracks to tune into picking those melodies out from the sonic chaos, but once you do, they feel like they’re mainlined into the soul, a direct dose of scatty, emphatic sing-along quality.
The opener is an attempt to portray their continued relevance, and it’s more than decent. ‘Run, Run, Run’, has this driving force that was always a theme of the band, and it quickly becomes clear that Pete and Carl are in tune, indulged in a moment of mutual love rather than the hate/hurt combo that sometimes ruins them.
The old classics don’t take long to emerge, with ‘What Became Of The Likely Lads’ and ‘Boys In The Band’ dropped early, before Lisa O’Neill is greeted by Pete as a “cousin of Aisling” as she comes on to contribute vocals to newbie ‘Night Of The Hunter’.
The Libertines’ guitar parts again stand out. They have always felt a touch like a kind of semi-deliberate chaos that squeezes together just enough to create the overall effect, a kind of roughshod, lightly punk-rock aesthetic through which their songwriting – at times outright immaculate – seems to peek around a corner and doff it’s flat cap at the sheer discombobulated mania upon which it rests.
‘Up The Bracket’ is still, just about, the dominant record on the setlist, and also offers most of the best moments, but any nod to the band’s early career goes down a storm. ‘What Katie Did’ remains a sing-along classic, and there’s something deeply affecting about watching Carl and Pete share a microphone, almost oblivious to the audience, as they barrel through a track that was written as almost a jibe at each other, ‘Can’t Stand Me Now’.
It’s the synergy that wins out, in amongst the bounce-along chaos. Pete is doing his best to connect with the audience, failing to remember how to count a track in in Irish (he has the crowd do it for him), and emerging for a vibrant encore in a dated QPR hoodie with Guinness emblazoned across the front, having spent most of the set in a trench coat and wide-brimmed hat. ‘Music When The Lights Go Out’ is soul-wrenching, and on a brilliantly muddled ‘Horrorshow’, Pete finishes with a lyric edited on the fly to say he “left something in County Sligo”.
In amongst the sublime vocal interplay, messy guitars and potent sense of nostalgia, The Libertines have hit one of their finest moments, and leave the Olympia a pulsating bundle of energy, the feel of a place that knows that it’s gambled and won. Who knows, ultimately, what will become of these likely lads – it’s hard to argue their songwriting has returned to its euphorically emotive peak just yet. That said, as a forceful, moving live entity, on this particular night they’re as good as this ‘first time round’ fan can recall. ‘What A Waster’, which closes the main set, for once feels like a song that’s not the shallowest of self explorations, but instead about someone and something else.
The encore, ultimately, feels like a massive crescendo. There’s fan favourite ‘Songs They Never Play On The Radio’, but it’s closing track ‘Don’t Look Back Into The Sun’, perhaps the band’s biggest calling card even in 2024, which brings about a massively emphatic closing high.
It’s worth nodding here, too, to ‘Hot Girl’, an incredibly poorly named (don’t Google them) Dublin band who open with a superbly entertaining, half-cut show in which frontwoman Ashley Abbedeen’s moody yet lush vocal is the stand out. The night, inevitably, however, belongs to Pete and co. Long may this shared sense of love and feeling of loose control drive them on. Right now, they might be as good as they’ve ever been.