Tom Clarke's Tour Diary
The Enemy frontman reports back from the band's intimate warm-up tour. Keep checking back for Tom's regular updates as The Enemy take their huge new songs to some very tiny towns.
20/2/09 – The Stone Roses Bar, York
Basically, where we're from, you hardly ever get touring bands coming through and there's lots of places – Dundee, Wakefield, York and Corby – that big touring bands never bother to visit. I think it's a bit unfair to forget that it’s the people in these towns that buy your music and put you where you are.
If we were sat in our local pub in Coventry and a band who’s albums we’d bought was playing, we’d be absolutely buzzing. That’s why we decided to do this tour of small venues – we didn’t let anyone stand in our way.
We've done the Ricoh Arena, massive arenas with the Stereophonics, the O2 with The Rolling Stones – we've done our fair share of massive places, but I always enjoy getting into a proper nitty-gritty venue. Last night in York, the only thing between me and the fans was my monitor, and that's a beautiful thing when you're there and in the same room, face-to-face with your fans.
The venue itself was quality. The clue’s in the title, but it was a shrine to The Stone Roses, among other greats. Legally the capacity was about 100-150, but how many people we had in there was another thing entirely.
We played a long set - we put in six tunes off the new album. The new stuff went down better than I ever imagined. I can never work it out, but whenever you write a new song, you play it at a gig for the first time and people start singing along immediately. How the hell does that happen?
Tagged as The Enemy, Tour Dates
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