Ahead of their astonishing new album, A Kiss For the Whole World x (click the kiss for our review!)quadrophonic quartet Enter Shikari announced an exhilarating experiment: Fifteen shows, in five UK venues across three months, with a selection of stellar support acts joining the frontline fandango. I was lucky enough to attend the opening night, penultimate performance and a half dozen shows in between – all sold out as a testament to the Shikari live allure that can’t be beat. This is an Original Rock report; reflections from Enter Shikari’s 2023 residency, curated for you from London, Wolverhampton, Manchester and Bristol.
Round 1
Lights, countdown, CONFETTI!!!
The collective, cathartic jubilation that comes from an audience chorus singing along to the lyric “please set me on fire…!” before being showered together by the sensation of warm LED pillars placed with precision and pieces of coloured paper that rain down from cannons placed stageside cannot be described. But I think I just did…
Round 2
Eight shows on the same tour, watching the same band seems excessive to some, but I knew from that first night in London that I had to see Enter Shikari again. Not because they’re from my hometown, not because they’re one of my favourite bands, but because they’ve been performing live for almost 20 years and this is clearly them at the top of their game, debuting new music live, mere days after they’ve shared it with the world. Despite searching my memories and even asking fellow concert-crazed friends, I don’t know of any other band or artist who has ever done this the same way. Sure, it’s always a fun surprise to hear an unreleased song live, but the thrill of being in that Manchester crowd when the perfect transition from the pressure’s on. led into the first time Bloodshot ever made the earth move and ground shake is one gig experience I will never forget.
Round 3
The Enter Shikari live experience is more than that though. Believe it or not, they are more than just a super talented band putting on an energising show with both old and new music that gets your blood pumping. It’s been there from the very start and that’s what Rou, Rob, Chris and Rory clearly understand – perhaps even more so after they went from a few months between shows to a year and a half without any live performances during the pandemic.
Speaking of some of their first shows at Club 85 in Hitchin back in 2004, Rou said:
“That’s when we started getting excited about the connection you have with an audience – the cyclical flow of energy” (Standing Like Statues – The Enter Shikari Authorised Biography by Luke Morton, Faber Music Limited, 2022)
That connection is there between Shikari and their audience, no question. However, it’s also there within the crowd itself. Whether I was there with my flatmate, my best friend who I went to primary school with, my partner or even by myself, I saw other old friends at these residency shows and made brand new ones. Every time I was helped up to crowdsurf, I never fell to the floor. In Wolverhampton a guy lost his shoe in the mosh pit and a few minutes later, it was there, held aloft by someone else who found it a few rows forward. In Bristol we watched three women singing their hearts out and crying to the sounds of Satellites. I put my arms around so many sweaty people I had never met and we sang in solidarity.
Live music is unity, live music is community, live music brings us together and if Enter Shikari have proved anything over the two decades they’ve been part of that cyclical flow of energy, it’s that they get it, their fans get it, and you will get it too if you make the effort to go out and experience it yourself.
