Dirty Pretty Things
Birmingham Academy 2 (27.02.06)

Having not heard much of Dirty Pretty Things material prior to the gig, I was exited at the prospect of being introduced to a wave of new material written by Libertine Carl Barat that I just knew id love. Id heard two songs via the internet before hand, ‘Bang Bang, You’re Dead’ and ‘Deadwood’ and also expected to hear a couple of Libertines classics. As the band came on stage, there was just something about them that was special, the chemistry between Carl and Didz is never going to be like ‘Pete ‘n Carl ‘, but you just couldn’t take your eyes off the stage, or off Carl. When the band played ‘Death On The Stairs’, which of course is a track off the classic ‘Up The Bracket’, it was a shiver down the spine moment, it’s Carl’s song, and even now, he still means every single word which he sings. The standout ‘new’ track for me was the brilliantly named ‘You Fucking Love It’, Carl and Didz both take vocal duties and the song sounds exactly like you’d imagine it would. Dirty Pretty Things brought the gig to an end by playing the Libertines’ ‘France’ and the previously mentioned ‘Bang Bang You’re Dead’, to mass sing-along. And what better way to end the gig than a rousing rendition of ‘I Get Along’, the ‘Fuck ‘Em’ lyric was a definite fist-in-the-air classic.

What a gig, I knew id seen something special. The Albion may have sailed off course, and to be honest, Babyshambles are shambles, but here’s a band to believe in; Dirty Pretty Things – the future of Rock ‘n Roll.


+ Review by Arfyn

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