Doherty Rots In Jail, The Enemy Rocks At Home
So Pete Doherty has finally gone to jail. It shouldn't be surprising, the number of times he's dodged custodial. But since the received wisdom where P.Do is concerned is he seems to have hypnotised the judges of Britain into being massive Babyshambles fans who would never, ever sentence him to jail, it genuinely feels a bit shocking.
And a bit of an anticlimax, since the sentence has finally been handed down for little more than breach of probation. Or, as his spokesperson put it: "breach of timekeeping, non-compliance of his order, and using different drugs."
What, different drugs from the ones he usually does?!
This isn't actually the first time Peter has been sent to jail of course. His countless near-misses, court appearances, and arrests have given the illusion that Peter is bulletproof to the efforts of the British Judiciary, but he actually served time back in the days of the Libertines, when in 2003 he staged a bizarre, botched robbery on best mate Carl Barat's flat.
The band have vowed to make the best of it, with drummer Adam Ficek vowing to stand by the beleaguered singer. "He's had lots of chances, he's going to find it really difficult in there," he told 6Music. "All I can say is that the band are going to stick with him as always."
And the band have had to get used to sticking by him. A planned solo show at London's Royal Albert Hall is now out of the question. But providing he behaves himself, he should be out of the slammer in time for Babyshambles to play Glastonbury next month.
But it hasn't been all doom and gloom round indie rock way. Over the weekend I went to Coventry, to see hometown heroes the Enemy conclude their victory lap of the U.K. with two sold-out nights at the city's Ricoh Arena.
Earlier in the week, the lad-rock messiahs had broken Blur's previously held record, playing six nights at London's legendary Astoria. For their hometown jamboree, the band actually had to build a new fire escape into the Ricoh, to up the capacity from 6,000 to the sold-out 8,000.
You can read my in-depth report in next week's issue of NME, but as a taster, here's diminutive frontman Tom Clarke giving us a tour of the empty arena around soundcheck.
