The Enemy @ Fat Sams
Intangible forces are at play this evening
| 06 Jan 2008
Intangible forces are at play this evening. And they're tampering and fiddling with the sophisticated and secret gadgetry which allows the world of journalism to run with nanoscale precision. These guest-list gremlins, however, are deftly neutralised with the kind of clinical mercilessness we'd all expect from a publication such as The Skinny and leave the evening with only one casualty. That being my opinion of Lethal Bizzle as an entertainer.
Not to let such paranormal interference deter, I press others who'd witnessed the performance for an opinion. The somewhat biased consensus was that Bizzle was competent but was not what the throng had come to see and, thus, had been met with some indifference. The real draw for the overwhelming majority was from an impossibly young trio hailing from industrial-England, The Enemy.
The nominal phonetic similarities between the headliners and the hosts (The NME) could be taken as disparaging, but far be it from me to comment on the etymology of the band's monicker. If they didn't rock so fucking hard I might have made more of it. I must shamefully admit that I hadn't expected much from The Enemy, a band I'd seen as being cynically marketed to what heavy-walleted record company execs imagined to be the working classes, i.e. a pot noodle munching proletariat.
From the moment they (unexpectedly) open with their biggest hit, Away From Here, the crowd is frenzied. So much so that occasionally the band is barely audible. They foment an atmosphere and excitement that is rarely seen during gigs of this size. Massive, heavy, crunching guitars belie their indie image and they're enjoying every disorientating minute of it.
On record they barely capture my interest. Live? I'd see them again in a second. This is exciting, uplifting stuff. Genre-prejudice and tiresome demographic-based marketing has seldom been so thoroughly torn apart. [Les Ogilvie]
Not to let such paranormal interference deter, I press others who'd witnessed the performance for an opinion. The somewhat biased consensus was that Bizzle was competent but was not what the throng had come to see and, thus, had been met with some indifference. The real draw for the overwhelming majority was from an impossibly young trio hailing from industrial-England, The Enemy.
The nominal phonetic similarities between the headliners and the hosts (The NME) could be taken as disparaging, but far be it from me to comment on the etymology of the band's monicker. If they didn't rock so fucking hard I might have made more of it. I must shamefully admit that I hadn't expected much from The Enemy, a band I'd seen as being cynically marketed to what heavy-walleted record company execs imagined to be the working classes, i.e. a pot noodle munching proletariat.
From the moment they (unexpectedly) open with their biggest hit, Away From Here, the crowd is frenzied. So much so that occasionally the band is barely audible. They foment an atmosphere and excitement that is rarely seen during gigs of this size. Massive, heavy, crunching guitars belie their indie image and they're enjoying every disorientating minute of it.
On record they barely capture my interest. Live? I'd see them again in a second. This is exciting, uplifting stuff. Genre-prejudice and tiresome demographic-based marketing has seldom been so thoroughly torn apart. [Les Ogilvie]