This weekend (August 18-19) sees the twelfth V Festival take place in Chelmsford and Staffordshire. There’s a fantastic selection of music on offer at V, from classic veterans to buzzing new bands, which we at Uncut will be previewing every day in the run up to the festival.

Rising from the break-up of The Libertines, Babyshambles, led by Pete Doherty, have never been far from controversy. The first few years of their career was marked with serial no-shows at gigs and, while they seem to have outgrown this, the band’s performances are infamously inconsistent.

However, Babyshambles’ new album, “Shotter’s Nation”, produced by Stephen Street and set for release in the autumn, is widely thought to be the strongest work they’ve created, with better songs and slicker production than their scrappy debut “Down In Albion”. With Doherty now banned from London for drug-related infractions and rumoured to be clean, V is likely to see the return of Babyshambles as a fantastic live band and as a force to be reckoned with. Watch out for the new tracks, they’re rumoured to be among the best Doherty has written.

Other performers at V include Primal Scream, Foo Fighters, Manic Street Preachers, The Coral, Kanye West and Jarvis Cocker.

Uncut will be blogging from V Festival all weekend bringing you updates from the action, so take a look at Uncut’s festival blog

this weekend (August 18-19).