Peter Doherty at the Brighton Dome 19^th March 2009

Pete Doherty has been remarketed. He is now Peter not Pete. In a plain black sweater and jeans he as been deGuccified; he is no longer Kate Moss’s dirty little play thing. He is now something else – but after watching him at the Dome I’m not entirely sure what that something else is, and nor I suspect is he.

The Peter Doherty on stage at the Dome was fully present and at points even slick, whilst making sure there was just enough rubbed in grime and spontaneity to keep the old fans happy. Compared to the shambling staggering, falling off a guitar stool performances he has previously inflicted on his hard earned cash paying punters, he was value for money. There wasn’t any encore, and the set and lighting were shoddy in their pared down simplicity, his promotions team couldn’t spell his name, and he didn’t seem to remember who his drummer was. But he was there, he delivered and filled the stage with musicians. The real value for money though, lay not in the number of musicians he filled the stage with (12) but in the number of versions of Doherty he paraded for his audience.

Doherty proved he was versatile at the Dome, choosing to open with a very different quality of sleaze from the tabloid celebrity car crash he had increasingly been defined by. Backed by an 8-piece plus 3 strings Doherty moved towards a much classier level of sleaze, here ‘A Little Death Around the Eyes’ smacked of Jacques Briel with a touch of the Marc Almonds. As the band were pared down the realities of remarketing Doherty, whilst keeping everybody onboard, became increasingly apparent. Doherty’s attempt to be everything to everybody turned into Doherty Barbie dress up, as he put on the different bits of clothing fans threw onto the stage. In these acoustic solo sections there was a stronger sense of the raw and the audience provided the energy, when it was lacking. Ultimately though it was when away from this, when backed by the searing strings, in a band, that Doherty came closest to that other thing he does, apart from get in the papers - beautiful, witty music.