Dirty Pretty Things - Oxford Brookes University
Related Artist:
Dirty Pretty Things
Date: 16/12/06
Venue Oxford Brookes University
Rating: 8/10
The last night of the sold-out tour and hours before the headliners arrive the 1,200 capacity venue is already sweaty, sticky-floored and close to full as first band Hot Club de Paris, with their 53-songs-in-one dogma entertain and bemuse in equal measure. Swedish support act Mando Diao, complete with a Barat-a-like bassist, fringe-flicking like his career depended on it, then get the crowd going largely by sounding a lot like tonight’s headliners. This is no bad thing with the crowd in early Christmas spirits, but when Carl and his merry men do come onstage, after insistent chants of ‘We Want Carl!’ and a brief interlude by a curious busker-type; everything else about tonight is resigned to a footnote.
Kicking off with ‘Wondering’, the underperforming last single, and the closest Dirty Pretty Things get to a ‘slow one’ may seem a strange choice, but in this context it works perfectly, switching the crowd into instant sing-a-long mode and providing a relative calm before the storm of the show’s vitriolic latter stages. Transforming from the trilby-sporting debonair to the bare-chested rock-god in a single movement, Barat does his best to make this a white (knuckle) Christmas. ‘Deadwood’ is a rousing accompaniment to The Russell Brand Show on record, but live tears through the crowd like a tidal wave of blood, sweat & leather, whilst the double-bill of ‘Bloodthirsty Bastards’ and ‘You Fucking Love It’ comes on like a collective first kiss, a bit of a blur, you don’t quite know what you’re doing, but you come out the other side infinitely older and wiser.
A few Libertines tracks are tossed in at intervals, sending the crowd into hysterics, but rather than overshadow Dirty Pretty Things' own efforts, they merely serve to ratchet up the excitement ever further. By the time Tim Burgess of the Charlatans makes an appearance for a communal arms-round-your-neighbour sing-a-long of ‘North Country Boy’, followed by the venue insurance policy-threatening ‘I Get Along’ to round off proceedings, crowd and band are a soaking, euphoric mass of shirtless abandon.
Far from the Carl Barat show, Dirty Pretty Things are a unit, retaining the frenzied desperation of the Libertines, but with a sense of band-of-brothers camaraderie and chemistry it seems unlikely Babyshambles will ever come close to. In fact the last word tonight is left to Gary, treating one and all to an acapella ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’. Dirty Pretty Things may never completely escape the Libertines shadow, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, they're simply the logical step forward that circumstance dictated. They could never hope to make waves the way said band did amongst 1001 soundalikes, but the devotion is still there. Engaging the crowd easily and brilliantly despite minimal between-song banter, to paraphrase one of the highlights of tonight, we - and they - fucking love it.
Jonny Esthero
Dirty Pretty Things Official Site
Dirty Pretty Things Myspace
Buy Dirty Pretty Things CDs | Buy Dirty Pretty Things mp3s | Buy Dirty Pretty Things Tickets | Buy Dirty Pretty Things Merch
Date: 16/12/06
Venue Oxford Brookes University
Rating: 8/10
The last night of the sold-out tour and hours before the headliners arrive the 1,200 capacity venue is already sweaty, sticky-floored and close to full as first band Hot Club de Paris, with their 53-songs-in-one dogma entertain and bemuse in equal measure. Swedish support act Mando Diao, complete with a Barat-a-like bassist, fringe-flicking like his career depended on it, then get the crowd going largely by sounding a lot like tonight’s headliners. This is no bad thing with the crowd in early Christmas spirits, but when Carl and his merry men do come onstage, after insistent chants of ‘We Want Carl!’ and a brief interlude by a curious busker-type; everything else about tonight is resigned to a footnote.
Kicking off with ‘Wondering’, the underperforming last single, and the closest Dirty Pretty Things get to a ‘slow one’ may seem a strange choice, but in this context it works perfectly, switching the crowd into instant sing-a-long mode and providing a relative calm before the storm of the show’s vitriolic latter stages. Transforming from the trilby-sporting debonair to the bare-chested rock-god in a single movement, Barat does his best to make this a white (knuckle) Christmas. ‘Deadwood’ is a rousing accompaniment to The Russell Brand Show on record, but live tears through the crowd like a tidal wave of blood, sweat & leather, whilst the double-bill of ‘Bloodthirsty Bastards’ and ‘You Fucking Love It’ comes on like a collective first kiss, a bit of a blur, you don’t quite know what you’re doing, but you come out the other side infinitely older and wiser.
A few Libertines tracks are tossed in at intervals, sending the crowd into hysterics, but rather than overshadow Dirty Pretty Things' own efforts, they merely serve to ratchet up the excitement ever further. By the time Tim Burgess of the Charlatans makes an appearance for a communal arms-round-your-neighbour sing-a-long of ‘North Country Boy’, followed by the venue insurance policy-threatening ‘I Get Along’ to round off proceedings, crowd and band are a soaking, euphoric mass of shirtless abandon.
Far from the Carl Barat show, Dirty Pretty Things are a unit, retaining the frenzied desperation of the Libertines, but with a sense of band-of-brothers camaraderie and chemistry it seems unlikely Babyshambles will ever come close to. In fact the last word tonight is left to Gary, treating one and all to an acapella ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’. Dirty Pretty Things may never completely escape the Libertines shadow, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, they're simply the logical step forward that circumstance dictated. They could never hope to make waves the way said band did amongst 1001 soundalikes, but the devotion is still there. Engaging the crowd easily and brilliantly despite minimal between-song banter, to paraphrase one of the highlights of tonight, we - and they - fucking love it.
Jonny Esthero
Dirty Pretty Things Official Site
Dirty Pretty Things Myspace
Buy Dirty Pretty Things CDs | Buy Dirty Pretty Things mp3s | Buy Dirty Pretty Things Tickets | Buy Dirty Pretty Things Merch
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