When DCist left the 9:30 Club last night, a homeless man on U Street told us to smile. That might best describe our experience with seeing The Libertines live. We expected a lot more, and in the end were disappointed, realizing that a band with such great potential had floundered and came up short. (Perhaps it was the co-mingling of Jamesons and Stella Artois that was shared on stage … or was the Jamesons actually red wine, which the band has been known to enjoy while chain smoking in their blissful belligerence?)
When we saw the British boys play last year at the Black Cat, we were under whelmed, more so when DCist found out that we were just two degrees separated from a Libertine via a childhood friend circulating in Baghdad’s wartime journalism circles. But we thought with the poor acoustics and the fact that the ultimate libertine, Pete Doherty, was in trouble with the law, rehab, etc., we’d give them a second chance with last night’s show. We like their albums. We wanted to like them live.
