Pete Doherty is playing live in Hamburg. With Fanta instead of gin

Hamburg
“You’re an Indie Ubermensch”: Pete Doherty plays live in Hamburg – and drinks Fanta instead of Gin

He was the enfant terrible of the indie scene: Even Pete Doherty was amazed that he lived to be over 25, as he reports at his most recent Hamburg concert. He’s been clean for a while. And delivered an intimate, candid show.

Many still have in mind Pete Doherty, who once dated Kate Moss. Beauty and the Beast. The obvious junkie who sprayed journalists with bloody syringes. Scandal noodle, wrecked genius, somewhere between unpredictable and insane. The British musician, who is an essential part of the indie bands The Libertines and Babyshambles, actually struggled with addiction for years.

On the one hand he easily shook indie anthems like “Time For Heroes”, “What Katie Did” or “Fuck Forever” out of his sleeve, on the other hand he forgot appointments, made album recordings to test his patience, stopped concerts early or started them hours late. Even Doherty’s fans had given up on him many times by the late 2010s. Now he played solo in Hamburg – and proved that even someone like him can pull himself together.

Pete Doherty played live in Hamburg

There have been surprising signals for a good year now. They say Doherty should be clean. The anniversary tour with the Libertines went smoothly and a new solo album was released. And in Hamburg he is actually on time on the stage of the Mojo Club. The dark hair has now turned gray and a few healthy pounds have replaced the former heroin chic. The concert is sold out. And Doherty, who happily sips Fanta in between, appears in a good mood and deeply relaxed. Fanta instead of alcohol. In between, he even praises the soft drink as a “great German invention” and humorously applies to be the drink’s next advertising face.

The 44-year-old stands alone on stage with his guitar. It doesn’t need more: He strums a few chords and sings one number after the other with his soulful, slightly brittle voice. That’s what he does and what he was able to do even when nothing else worked. He plays a few new pieces, a few very old ones. Snippets of songs that he started 25 years ago with his partner Carl Barat but never finished – and which he now brings to a finished form in front of the audience in real time. “Sucks and Blows” is about punks in Frankfurt he once met, and the cute line “You’re an Indie Ubermensch” makes people laugh. In between hits, hits, hits, which he purrs nonchalantly into the microphone as if it were nothing.

Endless indie hits

“Music When The Lights Go Out”, “What Katie Did”, “What A Waster”. Sometimes someone in the audience crows a wish, then the Brit looks at the list he has brought with him, frowns and explains why he cannot do the favor. “We’ll get to that,” he says, or: “I’ve already tried to learn it, but I couldn’t do it”. Once he says: “Fuck it, I’ll play it now”.

He actually wanted to work his way through his musical biography relatively chronologically: first the early Libertines stuff, then Babyshambles and late Libertines, then, he announces, a song from the later solo work “Hamburg Demonstrations” for the Hamburg audience. It’s not quite like that: Doherty and the audience feel so at home in the Mojo Club that the indie rocker keeps unpacking anecdotes. He tells about his first appearances in pubs, collaboration with Carl Barat, about drugs. “But we made it,” he tells the audience with defiant pride, meaning above all himself. “We made it through the rain!” We made it through there.

An hour and a half was too short

After an hour and a half, a roadie gives him a subtle signal: the time is up. Unfortunately, before there was a song from the Hamburg record to be heard, or the promised indie anthem “Fuck Forever”. Doherty looks just as saddened by this as the fans – one gets the impression he could easily have played another hour had the club and crew not had other plans. But that’s why it was a good evening. A happy Pete Doherty, a spellbound audience, the strange magic of the music. And Fanta. You treat the man to all the Fanta in the world and hope he never desires anything else again.