Babyshambles, The Cazals - Garage, London - Monday 21st February 2005

I landed back from Tokyo to discover that Babyshambles were playing at my local gig venue. And, even better, my mate and girlfriend had conspired between them to buy me a ticket - hooray!! Pete Doherty was just out of jail, and due in court on the morning of the gig. He also had a 10pm bail curfew at home, so this was to be an unusually early gig, as a warm up for one at Brixton the following night. On an bitterly cold (even for February) night, we got into the small venue with lots of questions - would Pete show up? Would he be tempted to break his curfew? Would Kate Moss, his new girlfriend, be there? Which other NME journalists/celebrity hangers on would be in the 300-ish crowd?

Support band The Cazals were not bad at all - some standout songs in a set which maintained a high level throughout- especially as this band, like Babyshambles also seemed to create and feed off a good deal of unpredictability on stage. But, really, nobody was there for them, it was all about Babyshambles.

One of the good things about the Garage is that security are very relaxed at gigs there - they let the crowd and bands do pretty much as they wish. Which was lucky this evening, as Pete was in mental form. Having been in prison for a good deal of the previous month, he was like a caged animal that had finally been released - strutting around the stage, and (literally) climbing up the walls at many points.

The set itself was completely electric from start to finish, full of the energy and edge that makes their live sets (when Pete shows up and is on form) rightly revered by the press and fans alike. Killamangiro was played early on, Pipe Down thrown in soon after that, and the whole set seemed to bounce from one great rocky song to another. The finale song, Fuck Forever, was a drunken, riotous culmination of everything that had gone before - a true live classic, and a marvellous rock song to boot. Pete was drumming his microphone so hard against the stage roof that it broke into many small pieces - an angry performance from a talented man.

Pete ran off stage shouting "I'll be back in a minute", but really, that was his opportunity to sneak out of the back door, and into a car to make his curfew. A whirlwind performance, that really took the breath away,