|  St Albans four-piece Enter Shikari | | (As published by audiotart.com)
ST
ALBAN’S four-piece, Enter Shikari played an epic set at Bournemouth’s
International Centre yesterday, with support from J-rock sensations
Maximum The Hormone and Drum n’ Bass act PDex.
Japanese rock
band Maximum The Hormone tried their best to engage the audience in
English, but with the majority less than moderately fluent, they
communicated in the way they know best – screaming. It was the first
time they’d played a gig in England, and for two of them, the first
time they had ever left Japan. They sang entirely in Japanese, and
whipped the crowd into a frenzy with their unique sound.
Next
came DJ PDex, whose act saw him entering the stage in a lab coat, to a
voice over condemning him for “not knowing what [he was] doing with the
scientific experiment”. He then appeared to break the equipment, before
“fixing it” and launching into his continuous set. His style was akin
to the chart-hitting Pendulum, and used samples from the likes of Busta
Rhymes and Daft Punk.
At the end of the P Dex’s set, Enter
Shikari frontman Rou Reynolds joined him for a remix of ‘Take To The
Skies’ intro track ‘Stand Your Ground; This is Ancient Land’. After a
few adjustments by the roadies, he was joined by the rest of his band
for their self-titled opening track, much to the delight of their
appreciative fans.
This tour has been the first chance for Enter
Shikari to showcase the new material that they have been working on for
the last year, and what they had to offer didn’t disappoint. New songs
included ‘Step Up’, a track that goes by the working title of
‘Antwerpen’, and latest single ‘We Can Breathe In Space, They Just
Don’t Want Us To Escape’.
After thanking fans for supporting
live music, the band went on to play spectacular renditions of crowd
favourites ‘Anything Can Happen In The Next Half Hour’, ‘No Sssweat’,
‘Return To Energizer’ and the single that brought them to fame – ‘Sorry
You’re Not A Winner’.
On stage antics included drummer Rob Rolfe
using a milk bottle to relive himself rather than having to leave the
stage to go to the toilet. He then threw said bottle into the audience,
only for it to return, bursting open and drenching the bass pedals –
causing a great deal of concern amongst the technical crew who had the
unfortunate job of cleaning up the mess.
The band returned for
an outstanding encore of ‘Mothership’ and ‘OK Time For Plan B’, before
jumping into the audience to shake hands, hug and kiss members of the
audience.
Allana Cutter | |