Concert Review: The Libertines Live at The Priory, Hitchin

For a generation of British music fans, myself included, The Libertines were THE band.

They arrived at the beginning of the 2000s and helped drag indie music back to the front of British culture, inspiring countless bands while introducing a whole new generation to guitar music, cultural influences, and their own brand of East London Chaos. More than 20 years later, those songs haven't simply survived; they've become part of people's lives.

Pete Doherty and Carl Barât remain one of those partnerships that just works on stage. Sharing microphones, trading vocal lines and regularly finding their way back to each other, the chemistry between them remains at the heart of The Libertines. John Hassall and Gary Powell complete a line-up that still feels unmistakably like the band people fell in love with all those years ago.

Opening with The Delaney immediately tapped into that nostalgia, before What Became of the Likely Lads brought one of the first huge singalongs of the evening. There is something quite special about hearing that song today. Written about Doherty and Barat's friendship more than two decades ago, it now has thousands of voices joining them as they stand together singing it back.

Boys in the Band, What Katie Did and The Good Old Days kept those early memories coming, but this wasn't simply a celebration of the past. We are often guilty of trying to hide in our nostalgia of the past when experiencing harder modern realities, but this was more, a chance to show we are doing more than just surviving.

Night of the Hunter, Shiver, Merry Old England and Run Run Run showed just how naturally the band's newer material has settled alongside the classics. The Libertines aren't out here simply playing the songs everyone remembers. They remain a creative, working band with plenty to say. What’s more, the new material easily earns its place on the set.

Music When the Lights Go Out was beautiful. With the pace dropping and voices carrying across the Priory, it became one of those moments where you could hear just how much these songs still mean to people. Then came Death on the Stairs, The Ha Ha Wall and Up the Bracket, and suddenly we were right back in the middle of those first two records.

By the time What a Waster and Can't Stand Me Now arrived, Pete and Carl barely needed to sing. Thousands of people were doing it for them. That is perhaps where the nostalgia hits hardest. These aren't simply songs people remember liking. They are songs attached to nights out, friendships, relationships, festivals and a particular point in British music and life when The Libertines seemed to be everywhere.

More than 20 years later, Time for Heroes can still send a field into absolute celebration. For the finale, Kit - who had opened the day at the Priory several hours earlier - joined the band on stage for Don't Look Back Into the Sun. It was a lovely way to bring the whole day full circle, from its opening artist to its headliners, with one of the great British indie anthems ringing around the grounds.

The closing of the show ended a perfectly curated day of music for Live at The Priory. This was more than just a sing-a-long - These songs carry memories that go far beyond the band who wrote them. They belong to first gigs, old friends, questionable nights out and a generation that grew up with The Libertines playing somewhere in the background. At Hitchin Priory, they sounded every bit as important as we remembered them, and every bit as good to hear today.

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