The Libertines' Pete Doherty's 'heroic' gesture for young band

Virgin Radio

20 Feb 2024, 09:53

The Libertines’ frontman Pete Doherty is being celebrated for the “heroic” kind gesture he recently made for a young band.

Ahead of a gig he was playing at Leeds’ The Wardrobe, the ‘Music When The Lights Go Out’ star met an emerging indie band called The Caymans.

Not content with letting the four young men from Halifax just head off with a photograph before he left to perform, Doherty invited the band to play as his support act at his show that evening.

Speaking with BBC Look North, The Caymans band members Toby Walker, Alastair Bentley, Ewan Wilson-Youngman and Jacob Brown shared how much The Libertines’ star’s offer meant to them individually and as a band.

“It’s quite heroic of Pete to let a smaller band come on and play in front of an audience that knows what they want,” Alastair, a guitarist and vocalist in the band, who are all college students, said.

“He was so personable, it didn’t feel like you were speaking to someone who sold millions of records,” Jacob, a vocalist and bass guitarist, shared. “It was just like you’d known him forever.”

The young band’s The Wardrobe gig was their biggest yet after forming in 2023. The band are hoping Pete’s kind gesture and the success of their performance will help promote The Caymans to more exciting opportunities in the near future.

“It’s the dream for all of us to make music as a way of living and it’s given us a taste of that and we just want more of it,” Jacob said.

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