The Enemy Live @Shepherds Bush Empire

Travellers Tunes must fess up…, we saw The Enemy at the Borderline this year and decided not to review the gig. The reason being that the gig was so intimate and so personal, here at TT, we felt couldn’t write anything which wouldn’t be a great big pile of self-indulgence.

However, one thing seemed really clear that night, Tom Clarke seemed bloody grateful to have a room full of people ready to have a good time in his presence again. You could see in his eyes that if ‘Streets In The Sky’ went tits up, then he would always have this. As new song ‘2Kids’ proclaims “you’ll never take our memories away”.

The reason we have now referenced this gig (a great gig, btw)is because TT was at the Shepherds Bush Empire a few days after the Enemy’s 3^rd album came out and the band’s demeanour has changed dramatically, as well as the audience’s.

In the space of 2 months The Enemy have clearly been on one hell of a journey. They are now back to playing packed venues of a decent stature but more importantly, they have crowds willing to diminish their vocal chords on the new tunes. This has clearly had a great impact on their confidence and the belief that what they are doing is worthwhile. At one point Clarke rightly declares “Who the fuck said guitar music is dead. It’ll never die cos you’re here and so are we”.

The impact the impetus from the crowd will have on the future of this band cannot be underestimated. When the crowd sing “Enemy! Enemy!” ( a-la like Liverpool fans) the super confident bassist Andy Hopkins is clearly humbled whilst Clarke is verging on tears.  It justifies everything TT believes is wrong with the X Factor and how they manipulate the audience with a character’s back story. Cowell and the show’s producers know full well they can make people cry and feel empathy for someone when Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’ is played over the top of a promo. Ultimately though, it is not real. Tonight is real. In 30 years’ time someone’s kid might pick up an Enemy record and talk to their folks about them and they will relay stories about Clarke welling up at this very gig. For the boring fuckers sat indoors being fed diarrhoea……well, who gives a shit about them.

The confidence ebbing its way back into the band is apt as ‘Streets In The Sky’ is the most optimistic lyrical content they have produced so far. They have mentioned new songs have been written for album no.4 already, so fingers crossed this momentum continues and who knows, soulless drivel like Tinie Tempah and Rita Ora can be shunted to the outskirts and The Enemy can be given the airplay they deserve. Plus, TT cannot wait to see how loyal fans are when Tinie is down his luck. One assumes they will be on to the next hype!