Watch Pete Doherty cover Manic Street Preachers’ ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’ for Libertines lockdown special

Pete Doherty has shared an acoustic cover of Manic Street Preachers‘ 1992 hit ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’ as part of The Libertines‘ latest live-streamed lockdown content.

  • Read more: My wild night of stand-up comedy at the Libertines’ hotel as the world collapsed

In the blurry footage, Doherty, who appears to be sat down and playing along to pre-recorded audio of the song’s lead guitar riff, begins by admitting things have been “a bit chaotic,” before adding: “We miss you, we miss the world.”

The Libertines frontman then launches into the song, occasionally missing a few words along the way. Watch the performance below.

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Last month (October 12), Doherty’s bandmate Carl Barat shared a progress update on The Libertines’ new album.

“It’s been going well, but it’s been difficult with COVID,” Barat told NME. “We started writing here, and that was going really well but John [Hassall, bass] is in Denmark and Pete [Doherty] is in France. It’s been a fucker to travel. We’re just waiting to get back on it, really. We’re all writing and it’s all positive. We’re just waiting to get back and lay stuff down, it’s just a matter of when.”

He added: “It would be nice if we could do it here. That would make a lot of sense. We’ve never been readier. We just need to get together and do it.”







Meanwhile, James Dean Bradfield has revealed that Manic Street Preachers have been working on a new album during lockdown.

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Speaking to Radio X, the frontman said that the band’s 14th studio effort, the follow-up to 2018’s acclaimed ‘Resistance Is Futile’, won’t contain any references to the coronavirus crisis, as it would be like “adding insult to injury”.

The Manics also shared their re-recorded version of ‘Spectators of Suicide’, which appeared alongside ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’ on the band’s 1992 debut album ‘Generation Terrorists’.