Gig review: Peter Doherty, Barrowlands, Glasgow

WELL AT least he turned up this time. Guilty of two notorious no shows in Glasgow back when he was in the doldrums of drug addiction and attendant legal problems '“ the first at this venue in 2011 '“ Pete Doherty, or Peter as he prefers to be known when performing solo, continues to test the patience of his admirably loyal Scottish fans.

PETER DOHERTY | Rating: * | Barrowlands, Glasgow

Having recently released a new album and completed an arena tour with The Libertines, the London indie-rock icon is in better command of his vices these days, and that’s to be commended. But his mercurial songwriting talent has long since gone up in a puff of smoke, and the substantially new and as yet unreleased ragtag material he performed here sounded shoddy and scarcely befitting of a sell-out at such a prestigious music hall as the Barrowlands.

Dressed in a trilby hat and backed by a loosely drilled band that included former Babyshambles bandmate Drew McConnell on bass and Miki Beavis, Katia De Vidas and Stefany Kaberian on violin, keyboards and accordion respectively, Doherty limply fumbled his way through the wilted likes of Last of the English Roses and The Whole World Is Our Playground, as interspersed with a couple of Libertines and Babyshambles numbers in You’re My Waterloo and Albion.

A gruesome sounding attempt to get a kilted bagpiper to play the melody to Don’t Look Back Into The Sun at the encore preceded that track being duly throttled, before Time for Heroes belatedly gave the crowd the kind of rowdy roar-along they’d come for. It turns out Doherty is as exasperating when he shows up as when he doesn’t.