Top British rockers swarmed to Ayia Napa for this year’s Napa Live music festival, NAOMI LEACH goes backstage and met The Enemy (as reported in
Cyprus Mail)
Rays of green neon light splay across the crowd. The bass guitar groans and the raucous mob pound their feet, stomping the ground rhythmically and jerking back and forwards to the pulsing heavy rift. Twisted Wheel close their deafening set and platinum selling rockers The Enemy saunter on stage. Lead singer Tom Clarke swaggers to the microphone with a guitar in one hand. He points appreciatively at the crowd and their top ten hit ‘Away From Here’ erupts. The crowd dance feverishly, chanting along. A plastic cup of beer is flung into the mosh pit at the front and splashes on the topless torsos of men, busily slamming into each other. Further back a blonde is hoisted on to her boyfriend’s shoulders. She sways enthusiastically to the music, arms outstretched to the stage. As hit tune ‘We’ll Live and Die in These Towns’ swells through the venue in Tom’s thick Coventry drawl it’s easy to forget exactly where we are.
This scene was not at this week’s Glastonbury rock festival in the UK, it was in fact at last weekend’s indie music festival in Ayia Napa. The Enemy performed live alongside Twisted Wheel on the second night of the three day Napa Live festival. Then acclaimed Birmingham indie band The Twang and northern rock legends The Charlatans completed the line up by performing at the festival the following night.
For a dose of garage, house and reggae people flock to the island’s clubbing mecca, Ayia Napa but now indie rock is an unexpected and welcome addition to the music scene. Tourists and super fans alike are embracing the burgeoning scene as the Napa Live festival flourishes in its second year. It was set up by Chris Topliss, the man behind Napa hangout the Live Lounge.
During their sound check, I grabbed a few minutes with The Enemy to find out what brought them to Ayia Napa. The first thing that strikes me about the three piece act is how young and diminutive they look, not what you’d expect when listening to their raw, contagious anthems, riling against working class oppression with humour and pathos.
Front man and songwriter Tom Clarke has a confident, self possessed interviewing style full of pithy, dry asides. Bassist Andy Hopkins is friendly and open, while drummer Liam Watts is polite but the group fall into the natural patter of allowing Tom to be the band’s voice piece.
Andy is wearing a sling, which I notice he ditches later for the gig. The injury happened at the recent Download Festival.
“I fell over drunk. It happens a lot. I fell on my face, broke a finger before a gig, in Ibiza. And broke my heel before V festival,” he admits nonchalantly. It never stops him playing though, he declares proudly.
They say they have matured since their explosive entry on to the music scene in 2007, hailed as the saviours of rock, by the music press. “Everyone’s grown up. Become a better band,” explains Tom. They are currently working on their third album which will be a return to the ‘smack you in the face’ immediacy of the first album.
Although The Enemy has had a successful whirlwind few years performing and recording, they claim to lead very normal lives. Andy says “Life isn’t the band. We still have lives in and outside of the band,” Doing what? I ask. “We still nip to Sainsbury’s to get the milk. Pay the mortgage,” replies Tom.
Much as the band try to maintain normality by still living in Coventry they lead a lifestyle many would envy.
“Yeah if you say touring the world playing gigs in beautiful places is a dream, then you could consider it a dream. There’s perks, playing live shows, gigs here, stuff like this. I was lying in the pool earlier and thinking it’s not a bad life,” Tom admits.
The boys looked pretty relaxed hours before their headlining gig but confess they do still feel the nerves sometimes.
Liam confides “My biggest worry is to go on stage and I don’t know where I’m walking. I don’t want to go on stage and get lost in front of so many people.”
“I get a bit more nervous when not gigging.” Andy confesses,
“I’m more nervous now. But it’s healthy nerves, an adrenaline rush, in the run up I’m thinking ‘where are the pedals?’ I used to turn up have a beer and just stroll on stage,” reveals Tom.
“There’s more pedals now,” smirks Andy.
“We’ve got a loyal following because of our live gigs. We always play our hearts out, we always say ‘Let’s play like it could be the last version played!’” declares Tom.
The band jumped at the opportunity to play in the new indie hot spot of the Mediterranean. “There’s a massive expat community here and in that way Cyprus is a bit of a one off. They’re trying to build a huge indie movement. There are also a lot of Scandinavians in Cyprus and they don’t know indie, it’s totally foreign to them. That should be exciting, it’s what music is about, discovering stuff you didn’t know about already”.
Source: Cyprus Mail
