Watch Out – It’s The Music Police!

Pete Doherty has been banned from performing at a music festival because of police fears his music would whip the crowd into a violent frenzy.

Ummm, really? This has happened before, has it?

Apparently so:

Superintendent Paul Williams, of Wiltshire Police, said the application had come following Doherty's solo performance at London's Royal Albert Hall which was marred by crowd trouble.

He said: "It is very unusual for the Royal Albert Hall to have to request police assistance, which on that occasion they did.

"He (Doherty) just whipped up the crowd and there was disorder.

"We are not killjoys and we help organisers with many events throughout the year and some are much larger than this one."

This is believed to be the first action to use Sec 160 of the 2003 Licensing Act. Is Pete Doherty really worth it? I’d have thought he had a small following at best.

Chief Superintendent Julian Kirby added: "We carried out an analysis of what Pete Doherty and his band does.

"What he does as part of his routine is to gee up the crowd. They speed up and then slow down the music and create a whirlpool effect in the crowd.

"They (the crowd) all get geed up and then they start fighting."

Your taxes at work. Paying plod to watch video of pop concerts….

But joking aside, is what Doherty does really unique (and uniquely ‘dangerous’) among musical bands? Or is this a ‘thin end of the wedge’ situation?

Update: Over at An Englishman's Castle, another possible reason for this police action emerges...