Wednesday 29/11/06 Dirty Pretty Things @ The Apollo, Manchester

Arriving into the sticky, sloping embrace of the much underrated Apollo venue, the Manchester crowd was firstly greeted by the perkiness of Hot Club de Paris, with their schoolboy antics and sporadic harmonising – who, after being literally booed off stage, were replaced by a mediocre but warming Larrikin Love.

The therefore gratefully-received Dirty Pretty Things made a fashionably late appearance, verging on rudely tardy, but any impatient feeling instantly evaporated into a contented pool of ‘this-is-well-worth-the-wait’ hyperactivity. With his quiet confidence, Karl has created a niche for himself well outside the dark shadow of Pete, demonstrating live what was already clear from ‘Waterloo from Anywhere’ – that this man, all along, held a significant share of the talent that propelled the Libertines to success.

Mr Barat and his troops (including two more Libertines and Didz Hammond, if you’ve been asleep for a year) have penned a very impressive array of tunes, dripping with lyrical maturity and the knowingness of a man who has seen the slow destruction of a life at close range. With a fierce energy and swagger, the group gave their all to album favourites such as ‘Deadwood’ and ‘Doctors and Dealers’, while being confident that enough time has now passed to venture into Libertines territory with the very apt ‘Good Ole Days’, and ‘I Get Along’.

At the first brass-laced beat of ‘Bang Bang You’re Dead’ (a worried warning to the beloved Pete), the mixed-bag crowd became even more crazed, while the group allowed more ferocity into their staccato guitar beats. The loopy drummer, ex-Libertine Gary Powell, was especially on form, entertaining the audience with his bounding presence and eventually throwing his drumsticks out into the audience to be squabbled over by fans.

Although the pain is still evident in Carl’s passionate lyrics, (“The world seems out of touch now, we don’t get on so much, I don’t feel the same in these bones” – ‘Blood Thirsty Bastards’), he looks visibly less strained than he did in his former band’s dying days and these unplanned changes could be more of a blessing than he anticipated.

Among the respectable Jam covers (tonight they finish on ‘In the City’) and the bittersweet determination, there may be a more deserving musical icon bursting to get out, hopefully well away from the glare of the merciless tabloids.