TO PLAY SPECIAL
20TH ANNIVERSARY SHOW
SATURDAY 23RD JULY 2022 @ OVO ARENA WEMBLEY
+20TH ANNIVERSARY 2LP, 2CD, DIGITAL & BOX SET
(FEATURING 65 PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED RECORDINGS)
RELEASED 21 OCTOBER 2022
To celebrate the release of their astonishing debut album ‘Up The Bracket’, The Libertines will be performing a special 20th anniversary show at London’s OVO Arena Wembley on 23 July 2022.
With a 20th Anniversary Edition of the album set for release through Rough Trade on 21 October 2022, the band will be performing the album in its entirety along with a selection of choice nuggets from their peerless back catalogue at the show.
At the Wembley show, for one night only, the band have chosen two of their favourite bands from the class of 2002 to support them — The Cribs and The Paddingtons. Also on the bill will be rising star, and darling of the Arsenal terraces, Louis Dunford, along with recording artist and DJ Amazonica on the decks.
In addition to a remaster of the original ‘Up The Bracket’ album, produced by Mick Jones (The Clash), the Super Deluxe Edition also includes a remarkable 65 previously unreleased recordings including many original demos, radio sessions and live recordings all helping to chart the making of ‘Up The Bracket’, plus a live recording from the 100 Club in 2002. It also contains a 60 page book with a foreword by Matt Wilkinson, new interviews with the band by Anthony Thornton and many unseen photos and memorabilia.
‘Up The Bracket’ arrived like a raging bull in a tired post-Britpop china shop and introduced the world to The Libertines, a new gang of London bohemians whose ragged tunes, red military tunics, opiated poetry and ‘live now pay never’ lifestyle came to define the millennial angst of the early noughties. At the heart of the band is the blood bond bromance between the ramshackle Music Hall Jagger/Richards, Peter Doherty and Carl Barat, ably assisted by the rock solid rhythm twins John Hassall and Gary Powell. Any bookie worth his salt would have given you short odds on this quartet surviving more than a month or two, given the teetering on the brink lifestyle they chose to lead, but here we are two decades later and our Byronic heroes, though older and wiser, are still fighting the good fight and making music every bit as vital as their debut. The belief, talent and fervour that Doherty spoke of in their earliest manifesto has stood them in good stead.
Up The Bracket, justly considered one of the greatest albums of the noughties, was originally released on October 21st 2002 by Rough Trade Records. The album, a heady stew of indie rock, skiffle, blues, dub and English bucolic pop, was a huge shot in the arm to a largely redundant music scene and helped to inspire the rebirth of guitar music, going on to influence countless artists who followed in its wake.
Up The Bracket, which was produced by Mick Jones of The Clash, takes you on a wondrously poetic journey into the band’s mythical world and their fevered dreams of Albion, a land of squalid glamour, liberty, equality, fraternity, gin palaces and chip shops. Quite simply Pete, Carl, Gary and John created a hugely compelling timeless British rock’n’roll classic debut as relevant now as it was upon its release.
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My life is a soundtrack, i track my life through music, photography is my passion, my escape, my expression. Without both i have pieces missing, thankfully i’m blessed and get to combine both.
Born in Manchester, lived in Australia for 22 years where i was heavily involved in the Australian Music Industry, firstly in bands (Singer) and then managing bands (all original), I moved back to the UK, Wales specifically 10 years ago and married my childhood sweetheart and life is good.
