Yo-Yo presents Pete Docherty and The Paddingtons At The Welly Saturday 14th August By Steve Rudd

The Welly Club (about a mile away from the train station and down Beverley Road, for those who might not know) is fast becoming the hottest venue in the city in which to check out quality bands, both old and new. Tonight's almost instantaneously SOLD-OUT gig was to large extents very hush hush, and if you were lucky enough to get a ticket, then you were very fortunate indeed, with there being just a handful of tickets available for sale on the night.

Saturday night at The Welly is a joyous affair, and it really is one of the in places to be for a night out. This gig was upstairs in a pretty small room, so the place soon became packed in time for Hull quintet The Paddingtons. I'd chatted a while to the band's manager Jon Farmer before the gig, who confessed that he was loving being the manager, having known the lads in any case for some years before they started to get really well known around the city.

In this past year, high profile bands such as The Cribs and The Libertines have helped out The Paddingtons to generous degrees, and London really has been something of a home-from-home for these Hull lads, for they regularly play gigs way down there in the capital. Tonight the electric atmosphere made their set feel like a homecoming one (incidentally, this very venue hosted last year's Carling-sponsored homecoming gig for The Beautiful South which was broadcast on TV). All five guys sport long hair and clearly love good old rock 'n' roll, with lead singer Tom coming on like The Vines frontman.

Having secured a single deal with famed label Poptones, their new single Twenty One will inevitably provide an even better opportunity for them to be heard on a national scale, and while talk of a possible future album release and UK tours failed to materialise from the mouth of their manager Jon, their potential is there for all to hear. Now, Pete Docherty (the main singer and songwriter for The Libertines) has proved himself time and again not to be the most reliable of people, and he often turns up late or not at all for gigs.

At the time of writing he isn't with The Libertines due to another falling out with them of sorts (details are sketchy), but no matter, because Pete has written a shack-load of incredible solo material which he tends to present with his other band, Babyshambles..a quartet that features himself (obviously), a couple of guitarists and the former drummer of girl band The Suffrajets.

The ever-charismatic and poetic Pete really is a much revered character and treated like a god by his fans wherever he goes, so naturally the crowd went crazy when he did take to the stage at just after 11:15pm.. which wasn't late at all considering.

Singing his way through the best part of 50 minutes of material, not one Libertines song was played (despite the fact that most of his solo gigs do usually feature a hefty selection of Libs anthems), yet still the fans seemed to know most of the words to most of the songs and nobody complained, as Pete lurched around the stage, sometimes looked dazed and confused, but all the while seeming happy at the reaction his tunes were getting. As if the crowd wasn't over-excited and jovially rowdy enough as it was, once Pete invited people up on stage, literally half of the crowd surged forward in pursuit of the safety barrier, simply because he was personally inviting us to join him up front - in more ways than one - in singing and dancing like there was no tomorrow.

Frantic - and most painful - bouts of crowd-surfting ensued, while I got pushed to the side which resulted in the back of my head accidentally cracking the jaw of the unlucky man stood nearest to me on my right. But he said it was ok, though I could see he was in pain and discreetly cursing me under his breath. Still, gig-related injuries are all part of the rock 'n' roll experience. It's just not very funny when you are the victim. Pete really did look worn out, as the clock struck midnight and Sunday morning came around; it seemed that no sooner had he got on stage, he was back off it again, leaving the crowd to revel in the fact that they'd just witnessed one of Britain's most sought after and respected songwriters in the flesh.

And in Hull Welly Club of all places. Who would have thought?.. www.thepaddingtons.moonfruit.com

Photographs courtsey and Copyright © Darren Rogers & Elsie Creek

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