Today Enter Shikari release a live set entitled “The Last Spark (Bootleg Series Vol. 11)”, recorded in front of a sold out crowd at Brussels historic Ancienne Belgique venue on the final date of the band’s mammoth 2018 / 2019 world tour marking the end of “The Spark era”.
Available from www.entershikari.com/store as a pay-what-you-want (with a minimum donation of £3) download, all profit from the release will be shared out between the band’s road crew who would have been working across the cancelled-for-obvious-reasons “Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible” album launch shows and summer 2020 festivals. The full set is available to stream on the band’s YouTube channel (Enter Shikari encourage anyone streaming there to drop a donation over too, if they’re able):
Singer / front person Rou Reynolds said :
“Some of our crew have been with us since 2006. They’re our family, and make us look and sound good, often under difficult circumstances. The least we can do is try to support them during this difficult time. We would have liked to have done something for them sooner, but mixing the audio on this took us longer than expected, and they wouldn’t appreciate us rushing out shoddy art in their name.
The Brussels AB is one of the best venues in the world, and one that has always been good to us on the many times we’ve played there. We’re happy to finally be able to capture a show from there on tape.”
The release coincides with the launch of a new “Charity” tab on the Enter Shikari store.
Growing from the band’s recent t-shirt released to raise money for the Black Visions Collective and Southern Poverty Law Center following the murder of George Floyd and resulting Black Lives Matter protests, the page will contain merchandise, music items, and rare one-off pieces with profits donated to various charitable causes.
Most prominent amongst the initial items is a one-sided blue vinyl 7” of the 2019 “Stop The Clocks” single. Originally planned as a “normal” release, the vinyl is limited to 450 copies worldwide and has instead been donated by the band, So Recordings and The Orchard with the full income from the sale being split between Open Door (a charity supporting the homeless in the area, currently operating from St Albans’ Pioneer Club, the youth club where Enter Shikari promoted shows as teenagers) and Fans Supporting Foodbanks (a joint initiative between Liverpool FC & Everton FC supporters clubs to benefit those most affected by devastating Tory austerity in the city of Liverpool).
Rou also had this to say on the subject :
“We didn’t have time to make a Stop The Clocks 7″ at the time of its original release, so it’s nice to finally have that on plastic, and especially nice that we get to use it to do something useful. The rise of foodbank use is an effect of shameful government policy and failure to look after the most vulnerable people in our society”.
In more self-centred news, Enter Shikari released their sixth album “Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible” back in April 2017. Critically acclaimed and embraced by fans, the album reached #2 in the Official UK Album Chart upon release.
The band have been recording live “lockdown versions” of tracks from the album, along with older tracks from their catalogue, and these have been complied into a handy playlist, here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLspwx0TMFxacQmm_aVPGCW0ySaSUFPQs0