Latest news with #FeltBetterAlive
Daily Mail
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Pete Doherty appears to be in good spirits as he takes to the stage in Berlin for his European tour after 'wake-up call' from shock health scare
Pete Doherty appeared to be in good spirits as he took to the stage in Germany during his European tour after revealing his recent health scare was a 'wake-up call'. The 46-year-old Libertines frontman took to the stage Huxleys Neue Welt in Berlin on Friday night for the latest stop on his Felt Better Alive European tour. He cut a casual figure in a shirt and jeans, which he styled with a black blazer and his trademark fedora hat as he sang out his hits for his fans. He was back on his feet singing and dancing after recently being forced to perform form a chair amid some serious health woes. In March, he revealed he is at risk of having his toes amputated after being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes last year. In a video obtained by The Sun at his gig in Munich, Germany, Pete provided his fans with a health update. He said: 'I saw the doctor today and he said you need to stay off your feet as much as you can otherwise you'll lose your toes.' He apparently didn't notice the sores on his feet until two of his toes went black in January. 'It was touch and go,' he told The Times of whether or not he would be able to keep his feet, having lost feeling in them. Those who suffer from diabetes carry the risk of foot-related complications as high blood sugar levels can damage blood vessels, in turn effecting the flow of blood to feet and legs. He admitted it 'was a real wake-up call' and he has 'basically not been drinking' since finding out. Pete continued: 'Now I allow myself a gin and tonic once a week, but I've basically not been drinking and have got my blood sugar to a good level, so my toes are healing.' The artist has been very open about his health over the years, previously claiming in 2023 that he felt 'death was lurking' due to the toll that years of drugs and alcohol abuse had on his body. He told documentary maker Louis Theroux that he was a 'very sick man… I've battered it haven't I, I've f***ing caned it.' 'The heroin and the crack… I surrendered to that, and then it was the cocaine and the smoking and the alcohol, and now it's cheese and the saucisson, and the sugar in the tea.' Last spring, Pete confirmed his diagnosis, saying: 'I've been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. And at the moment, I'm lacking the discipline to tackle cholesterol.' It seems Pete has worked on his lack of discipline after receiving some harsh words from his doctor. The star previously told the Evening Standard that his doctor had told him he had to change his diet immediately. He told the publication: 'I have seen a liver doctor who says I need to change my diet - too much cheese, too much milk. 'But the cheese is so good, that's part of the reason I stay here… It's a cholesterol and diabetes thing now, but there are tablets, it makes a big difference.' The rocker has previously admitted that his larger figure is the result of tucking into his guilty pleasure. In 2021, Pete said he had ditched drugs and was instead indulging on cheese on toast and enjoying long lie ins after staying up for six days straight during his wildest years.
Scotsman
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Album reviews: Peter Doherty Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Peter Doherty: Felt Better Alive (Strap Originals) ★★★ Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke: Tall Tales (Warp) ★★★★ Rebecca Vasmant: Who We Are, Becoming (New Soil) ★★★★ Whether Camden Town or Clerkenwell, Margate Pier or coastal Normandy, Libertines/Babyshambles frontman Peter Doherty hoovers up influences from his 'hood and imports them straight into song in gonzo reportage style. His latest solo album, Felt Better Alive, is awash with songs written but rejected for the most recent Libertines album, All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade. He's not bitter - he simply uses them more appropriately under his own name, including The Day The Baron Died, which is essentially All Quiet track Baron's Claw as he hears it. Peter Doherty | Bridie Cummings Home life just across the English channel has inspired a number of tracks. Doherty's location has changed but his eye for the man on the street/country road remains the same on Calvados, a holistic hymn to brandy-making, while he samples the sound of the sea and the voice of his local priest to create end-of-the-Normandy-pier number Prêtre de la Mer. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad But the old country makes its presence felt on Ed Belly, a breezy pub rocker which adds a touch of Dixieland jazz, skiffly drums and characterful sax to the mix. There is a spaghetti western saunter to the title track. Even better, irrepressible guest vocalist Lisa O'Neill, a vaudeville singer for our times, conjures dark mischief in London's historic Irish community on Poca Mahoney's. Doherty, of course, is a villain or at least anti-hero in his own romantic story and doesn't even pretend to varnish the truth on Pot of Gold, a candid lullaby for his daughter, which assures her that 'we'll forget about the time when they always tried to run me out of town'. Thom Yorke and Mark Pritchard | Pierre Toussaint Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke and electronica composer, producer and remixer Mark Pritchard collaborate on a suite of songs inspired by Pritchard's archive of analogue synthesizers. Pritchard has some adjacent form here, scoring a Top Ten hit in the early Nineties (as Shaft) with a rave version of the Roobarb and Custard theme. Tall Tales triggers some nostalgia for kids' TV themes and the work of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop but it is far from kitsch. A Fake in a Faker's World is closer to the lo-fi soundworld of post-punk synth pop with bonus celestial organ coda. Bugging Out Again is a very Radiohead title for a glacial, almost proggy soundscape with Yorke at his most fragile and desolate. Back in the Game is a flintier proposition with minimalist modulation, while The White Cliffs is a serene yet dark synth odyssey. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad In contrast, Gangsters features a cheeky synth riff and Happy Days emasculates the language of financial scams using perky piano and terse drum fills to create a toytown march. Visual artist Jonathan Zawada has made an accompanying feature film to be screened pre-release in cinemas. Rebecca Vasment | @elliekoepke_photography Glasgow jazz maven Rebecca Vasmant is equally adept at creating an immersive soundtrack, though she tends to find her featherlight spiritual jazz style and stick with it across her second home-recorded album Who We Are, Becoming. Home-recorded doesn't mean lo-fi. This is a sumptuous, silky suite with breathy vocal incantations, percussive shimmers and brooding brass from a who's who of the grassroots jazz scene, including singers Emilie Boyd, kitti, Terra Kin, Paix and Gaia Jeannot, drummer Graham Costello, saxophonist Harry Weir and new collaborators including flautist GOkU and harpist Amanda Whiting, all in raptures at this fluttering mood music for a sunny spring day. This time it's extra personal for Vasmant, who adds her own spoken word to Mother Earth and Poem for My Grandparents, both Holocaust survivors who have inspired her own prayer of gratitude and defiance. Vasmant is determined to inspire in turn, deploying joyful piano, iridescent harp and dubby brass to contend that Goodness Does Shine Through. CLASSICAL Viadana: 1612 Italian Vespers (CORO) ★★★★ Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad In 1612, Venice was rocked by the death of Giovanni Gabrieli, doyen of the city's signature luxuriant polychoral style. In the same year, one Lodovico Grossi da Viadana issued his own collection of music for the evening service of Vespers. These two composers play a central role in I Fagiolini's liturgical re-creation in which, besides Viadana's sequential psalm settings and Gabrieli's centrefold Magnificat, motets by Palestrina, Barbarino and Monteverdi and plainsong Antiphons contextualise the moment in time. Viadana's own music exudes a fascinating individuality, its rich diversity emphasised through director Robert Hollingworth's freely prescriptive use of his choral and instrumental forces. Where mezzo-soprano Clare Wilkinson offers a sublime solo presence in O dulcissima Maria, fuller voices animate the contrapuntal vocal theatre of Laetatus sum. I Fagiolini's intimate precision is offset by the fullness of Cambridge's De Profundis plainchant choir. Gabrieli's extravagant In ecclesiis provides a thrilling conclusion. Ken Walton JAZZ Jacqui Dankworth: Windmills (Perdido) ★★★★★
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Pete Doherty gives shock health update: ‘Body parts were going to have to come off'
Pete Doherty has said doctors warned he would have to have his toes amputated if he didn't make lifestyle changes following his Type 2 diabetes diagnosis. The Libertines frontman 46, has been open about his health struggles in recent years, claiming in 2023 that he feels 'death is lurking' after years of drug and alcohol abuse took its toll on his body. Those with diabetes run the risk of foot-related complications as high blood sugar levels can damage blood vessels, affecting the blood flow to feet and legs. Speaking to Fearne Cotton on her Happy Place podcast, Doherty revealed he had to change his diet and stop drinking to avoid losing his toes. Foot infections and unhealed ulcers are the primary cause of diabetes-related amputations, with the latter preceding more than 80 per cent of amputations. 'They were going to have to come off,' Doherty said. 'They're kind of on the mend now…I'm letting myself have a drink once in a while, like, every 10 days. 'But something has sort of shifted in me,' he added. 'There's not that need [to drink].' Doherty said his close bond with his wife Katia de Vidas and their young daughter Billie-May has helped him develop healthier drinking habits. 'It's just evolved, our relationship,' he said. 'The closer we've got, and the more time we've spent together, the less I've needed to do it. 'It turned out she preferred me not on drugs,' Doherty continued. 'I preferred it when she liked me, and we built a life.' The Libertines frontman said he also felt greater pressure to write his first solo album in nine years, Felt Better Alive, because he thought he didn't have much time left. 'I'd think, 'I'm dying. I've got to write a brilliant song right now'...that would happen a lot,' he said. 'I'm not that arsed really about writing. I love playing music but that need to write and create, it was fuelled by anxiety and darkness,' the musician admitted. Speaking to Louis Theroux in November 2023, Doherty said of his lifestyle: 'I've battered it, haven't I? I've f***ing caned it. [The] heroin and the crack… I surrendered to that, and then it was cocaine and the smoking and the alcohol, and now it's cheese and the saucisson, and the sugar in the tea. "It's all gotta go. They told me a little while ago if you don't change your diet then you're gonna have diabetes and cholesterol problems. Death's lurking, you know what I mean? That's why I carry that stick."
