Face Of Cheam

The Enemy at the Astoria on Friday were alright. An hour set comprising of mainly their ‘Live & Die In These Towns’ debut, a couple of new songs and a very dodgy cover of the Pistols ‘God Save The Queen’. They opened with ’40 Days And 40 Nights’ and immediately you could see their mod routes. Comparisons with the Jam are inevitable, and although they are undoubtedly a good band and know what they are doing, I don’t think there is anything that really stood out. The fact that they can sell out four or five nights on the trot here shows that they must stand above other bands but this doesn’t hide a lack of originality, and also empathises that there is a lack of good new bands at the moment. However, their audience was young and therefore don’t really care.
One gripe that gets me with a lot of modern bands at the moment is that although there is a keyboard player/programmer clearly playing, (and in this case introduced), he was hidden behind a speaker remaining firmly in the shadows. Kasabian (a far better band) and also New Found Glory recently were exactly the same and whilst they may not be an ‘offical’ member of the band, it would be good to see them get some credit as they are contributing towards the live sound of the gig.