It's Just His 19th Nervous Breakdown

Another Pete breakdown in Stoke

"Just got back from this afternoons gig in Stoke. What a fucking disgrace, im suprised nobody's posted anything. Pete was fucked, spent almost the entire sat (all 5 or 6 songs) sat on the floor next to the drummer. Seemed to forget words to songs and just wasnt with it at all. Band tried to sort him out but to no avail, I felt sorry for Pat and Drew. I thought he was sorting himself out?, the final nail in the coffin for me im affraid, that is the last babyshambles gig i am off to. The worst thing was, most of the crowd seemed to really enjoy it and were still shouting 'we love you Pete' after he had fucked off. Pathetic"

Guardian piece on playing more than one show in a day

But then the twice-in-one-night performance plays the same part in rock'n'roll as it does in the kiss-and-tell. In the music industry, just like in the tabloids, it goes without saying that more is always more, never less. And, of course, if two times is good and three times is great, four times is even better.

This, absurdly, is what Pete Doherty's Babyshambles somehow managed on New Year's Eve with shows in Birmingham, Stoke, Oldham and Manchester. This is the band who've caused at least one riot by their inability to get it together enough to play even once, and yet they pulled it off. What better way to show you're not the flake-out that everybody thought than by bombing up and down the motorway in the middle of the night? Unless by pulling a supermodel with a unduly literal take on what "dangerous" means, (it's supposed to be a teen magazine's euphemism for messy hair and "flashing" eyes rather than a mundane medical diagnosis). But I digress.

MP3 of Pete on Radio 4's "Bespoken Word"