After a mammoth four hundred and fifty band entries, seven nationwide heats, many pints of Murphy’s and some superb live music, the last bands standing in the Murphy’s Live 2008 final have been announced.

The acts going forward to the Murphy’s Live final are Bravado from Dublin and Gorbachov from Waterford. Both armed and ready with superb live sets, they will battle it out on the stage of The Savoy in Cork on Thursday May 15th , with one band heading home 10,000 euros richer, winners of Murphy’s Live 2008.

UK chart toppers The Enemy will guest headline on the night, performing a full live set from their No. 1 award winning debut album ‘We’ll Live & Die In These Towns’. With album sales nearing the half million mark, an NME award for Best New Band and an XFM award for Best British Debut Album Of 2007, the Coventry three-piece have caught the imagination of the masses with their energetic, restless brand of indie-rock.

Hailing from Dublin, indie-rock five piece Bravado have been together just seven months. While honing their live skills on the Dublin gigging scene, the band hit the Muso Studios to lay down some original tracks and plan to record their debut album in Galway in late 2008. Their driving guitars and raw vocals are reminiscent of their key musical influences, which include The Who, Arctic Monkeys and The Libertines.

Oft described as reckless, irresponsible and brilliant, Gorbachov are a five-piece guitar rock outfit from Waterford. The band have been together for four years, performing across Ireland and the UK, supporting bands such as The Frames and The Blizzards. They have just begun recording their debut album in the UK. To date they have released a number of singles and downloads including Mr. Fahrenheit which has been featured on XFM in the UK.

The 2008 Murphy’s Live band competition received a record-breaking number of entries, with over four hundred and fifty bands applying from all over the country. The fourteen bands chosen then competed in ML heats in Cork, Dublin, Limerick and Waterford. These heats were headlined by various successful Irish bands of the ilk of Fight Like Apes, Ham Sandwich and Future Kings Of Spain – therefore giving the competing bands the opportunity to play with some of the best live acts on the current Irish music scene.

Murphy's Live continues to build its reputation as Ireland’s most respected new band event, providing both media and industry attention for emerging Irish artists.

Tickets for the The Murphy's Live 2008 final are limited - to get yours click here

If you happen to be young, intelligent and restless, Coventry is a surprisingly inspiring place to be today- if only for all the wrong reasons. What was a once proud, vibrant town that was known around the world for its motoring exports (Jaguar, Peugeot) has succumbed to economic progress and is fast becoming an identikit British city of chain stores, franchised nightlife and abundant apathy. After spending the early years of life watching the soul get ripped out of their hometown, the three members of The Enemy are determined to connect their own frustrations up with that of an entire country.

Already mutual friends beforehand, The Enemy became genuine music allies in February of 2006. Andy Hopkins brought along his bass and boyish good looks, Liam Watts added a fearsome drumming prowess that blows away tub-thumpers twice his age and the young Mark E. Smith look-a-like Tom Clarke provided all the swagger and sneer that anyone could possibly expect from someone who has to sing and play guitar at the same time. Initially, the main motivation for the band was simply boredom in its many forms. “There’s nothing to do,” states Tom bluntly. “Although I did most of my growing up in Birmingham, it’s still very similar to Coventry when it comes to being bored. You’re either down the pub or you’re not so starting a band represented doing something a bit different to everyone else we know.” What started out as an exercise in keeping yourselves occupied soon developed into something more serious as the band realized that a) what they were doing was really, really good and b) they preferred it more to their day jobs by a distance of several light years.

Just eight months (eight months!) later, The Enemy are releasing their sinister yet pulverizing first single ‘40 Days, 40 Nights’ on the newly rejuvenated punk label Stiff records that once brought the world of the seminal early work of The Damned and Elvis Costello. Proof that they are already making a racket loud enough and impressive enough to awaken a sleeping giant. With the songs continuing to come thick and fast and the lofty comparisons to such luminaries as Oasis and Kasabian adding an element of early vindication, sticking with it seems like the only sensible option because as Tom continues, the alternative is a painfully stifling one. “It’s either this or get some shit 9-5 job, work your arse off for a relatively small amount of money and not have any real aims or ambitions… just like everyone else. If you look at most people that you know, they work in jobs that they either dislike or hate and their only goals are to get a decent girl and settle down in an average house. Everyone just seems to think ‘that’s life’ but it doesn’t have to be at all.” Having seen various members of their families live and work to this unsatisfying blueprint (until the grave in the case of Tom’s grandfather who worked at the recently closed Browns Lane Jaguar factory), The Enemy intend to reiterate that being working class doesn’t have to be merely another incarnation of adult slavery. “Why should you just accept that life is just work and work and work until you die? If you actually stop to question your regular routine, you’d be pissed off. All you’re doing is making someone else a lot of money. I’m not trying to be Billy Bragg or even to be political necessarily, we just want people to wake up.”

The time to rise, has been engaged.
Hardeep Phull, 2006