'There are fewer more distressing sights than that of an Englishman in a baseball cap', sang The Libertines on early hit Time for Heroes. As true as that may be, watching a once vital band try and fail to recapture their glory days also has to be up there.
So it was perhaps with some trepidation that Manchester welcomed the noughties legends for their Up the Bracket 20th anniversary shows. The Whitechapel quartet's Tony Hancock-referencing 2002 debut remains a classic - and distinctly English - salvo from what was once dubbed the garage rock revival.
Back then, the relatively unknown Pete Doherty and Carl Barat were co-captains of the good ship Albion - a mythic cultural vessel we now know was on course for treacherous waters indeed.
