Pete Doherty: Performing at Godiva festival a 'homecoming'

The Libertines closed the Godiva Festival on Friday night

Performing at a Coventry festival was a "homecoming", said The Libertines' Pete Doherty.

The band closed the show on the first day of the Godiva Festival on Friday.

Tom Grennan and Bananarama are also topping the bill during the annual three-day event at the city's War Memorial Park.

Doherty, who previously lived in nearby Bedworth in Warwickshire, said he wanted to set up a recording studio and support local young musicians.

He said he lived on army barracks in the area as a teenager and attended Nicholas Chamberlaine School.

His manager, Jai Stanley, with whom he set up record label Strap Originals still lives in the county, he said.

"This is where I really cut my teeth on a lot of things, where I first heard the bands that I loved, in that school, at that time," he said.

"It was a great era for music, listen to me getting all nostalgic, but it was the era of Pulp and Blur and that was where I discovered The Smiths through Jai."

The first Libertines demos, he said, were recorded in Leamington Spa in about 1997 or 1998.

Setting up a studio in Bedworth, he said "would be the dream".

At the gig was Simon Farndon who was in a band with Pete Doherty aged 17

"We haven't started yet...we are at the stage of looking for properties," he said.

"A venue/studio is really what we are thinking of because there basically isn't one.

"Music brings people together, it builds communities, breaks down walls, changes lives, saves lives."

Doherty was also reunited with schoolfriend Simon Farndon, who kicked him out of a band when they were 17.

Mr Farndon said: "We wanted to do covers...and he wanted to write his own songs so we said 'We're not really going to make any money or anything doing that so it is probably best you go and find your own band.'

"And what do I know about anything?

"It is absolutely amazing to see what he has done and the career he has had since I set him off on that path."