LORNA MARSH His performance at Live 8 might have been more shambles than showmanship but that has not stopped Norwich's UEA from booking Pete Doherty's band for a rare summer gig.

LORNA MARSH

His performance at Live 8 might have been more shambles than showmanship but that has not stopped Norwich's UEA from booking Pete Doherty's band for a rare summer gig.

Babyshambles will be playing the university's LCR on July 31 - upgrading from the their performance at the Waterfront, a venue less than half the size, just nine months ago.

The former Libertines frontman has a reputation for being unpredictable live and his chaotic duet with Sir Elton John at Live 8 ensured he was the only artist in the line-up to see sales fall.

A survey by HMV, which showed that Pink Floyd sales had increased 13-fold, found that purchases of Up The Bracket by The Libertines had fallen since Doherty's appearance.

But he has also attracted huge amounts of publicity and Gavin Hudson, duty manager at the UEA, said he expected there to be massive interest in the gig.

“We don't normally do summer shows, it is fairly unusual, but this was too good an opportunity to miss and the UEA is pulling out all the stops to do a special one off show.

“We worked well with the management for the show at the Waterfront, there are a lot of venues who have this perception that there could be a lot of problems but whenever we have dealt with them it has been very straight forward.”

The gig is one of a handful of dates before the band release their new single .

UEA is featuring in the mini tour alongside London's Brixton Academy and venues in Leeds, Sheffield, Bristol and Manchester.

The band first visited Norwich to play the 700-capacity Waterfront in September but didn't quite sell out.

Now they are expected to fill the 1500-capacity UEA LCR in the time that frontman Doherty achieved tabloid notoriety as the recovering drug addict boyfriend of Kate Moss.

But Mr Hudson said many other bands at the moment were achieving the same elevations in popularity.

“We have not confirmed it yet but ticket sales for Magic Numbers and the Ordinary Boys are going so well for the Waterfront that we are looking at changing their shows to the UEA.”

Other artists confirmed to perform at the UEA in Autumn are Mylo, Martha Wainwright and Nine Black Alps.

t Tickets for Babyshambles at £15 each are available by calling the UEA box office on 01603 508050.

t www.babyshambles.net; www.ueaticketbookings.co.uk