The Libertines Prowl Thailand’s Red Light District in Rabblerousing Comeback Video
(video above contains profanity)
It’s the reunion that some people thought would never happen. After a series of triumphantly against-all-odds reunion gigs (including a surprise appearance at the Glastonbury Festival last weekend), Britain’s infamous boys in the band, the Libertines, have finally reconvened to record their long-awaited third album, Anthems for Doomed Youth. And while the likely lads aren’t so young anymore, their deliciously attitudinal, snarling comeback single, “Gunga Din,” proves they’re definitely not doomed; they may very well still be Britain’s greatest rock hope. And judging from the song’s wildly boozy, expletive-filled new video, not much has changed since the rabblerousing garage-rockers’ classic sophomore album was released 11 long years ago.
Filmed in “Walking Street,” Pattaya, the sex capital of Thailand (a country where the Libs’ troubled Pete Doherty recently spent time in rehab, and where the band recorded their new album in April/May), the “Gunga Din” video showcases Doherty and his fellow likely lad Carl Barât, along with original members John Hassall and Gary Powell, in their ultimate element. They unapologetically carouse with ladies of the evening, bottle-feed each other exotic beer, chain-smoke, sweat through their suits, give each other piggyback rides, and generally have an excessively jolly good time.
When a swaggering Barât slurs in his signature cigarettes-and-alcohol Camden rasp, “Just another day, it feels like nothing’s changed” over a loose, skanking beat, he may be referring to the band’s endless and sometimes vicious cycle of blackout-drinking and drug-taking… but he could also be singing about the wonderfully easy, sloppy rapport he still shares with Doherty, despite their mod-checkered past of multiple arrests, rehab and jail visits, break-ups, and make-ups. It’s almost enough to bring a tear to any Anglophile’s eye.
Anthems for Doomed Youth miraculously comes out Sept. 4. In the meantime, Barât also has his side band, the Jackals, whose Let It Reign came out earlier this year.
Follow Lyndsey on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google+, Amazon, Tumblr, Vine, Spotify
