Gig: Enter Shikari
Venue: LCR
Date: October 5th 2009
 
It's a funny thing, fusion. It’s a case of people just smashing things together and seeing if it sticks mostly. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't, it's often horrible. When it does however... that's when things get really interesting.
Enter Enter Shikari. Where bands like The Prodigy and Pendulum married rock’s aggression to dance floor beats, Enter Shikari took it a step further, marrying a full blown metal assault to Happy Hardcore synths. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. One thing it never was though, was boring. And another thing it always was was utterly exhilarating live. Debut album Take To The Skies did just that, entering the charts at number 4 and introducing kids to whole new worlds of  aggressive music, metal and dance based. It was however, certainly a work in progress: the mix not quite right, there’s a sense of “here’s a metal bit” and “here’s a dancey bit”. So it was fun, it was exciting, but it wasn’t exactly right just yet.
Enter Common Dreads. When they returned back in June it was clear that they’d learnt a few things; Politics, dubstep and drum & bass mostly. Both appear here as stronger influences on the dance front than the chirpy synths of the first record, and not only does it sound like a more natural marriage, but it takes the idea of “dance-rock” to a whole new level.
But first, to the support acts. I arrive in time to see The Devil Wears Prada come on to the LCR stage and strut around like they own it, making righteous noise of their own. Tight riffs and pounding bass pedals abound, and the synth player doesn’t half know how to pull a good rock star shape. There’s nothing new here, but it’s done well and the crowd receives them well enough to start a couple of circle pits. A few confused faces and even a couple of boos ring out when the singer gives a bit of a sermon, but is wise enough to kick back into the aural punishment when he feels the crowd slipping.
That brings Enter Shikari onstage. From the minute the opening poem Common Dreads rings around the LCR and the band come out and tear into “Solidarity” one thing is clear: Enter Shikari have cracked this fusion lark. Every song seems more seamless, everything flows better. Having said that, the LCR show is the first night of the tour and ring rust shows slightly.  The gaps between songs are longer than they would usually be, a couple of technical glitches happen here and there, but nothing can really stop Enter Shikari when they’re on this sort of form. The crowd is treated to a few first live airings to songs from Common Dreads: “Gap In The Fence” is a beautiful anti-ballad, building irresistibly to a huge coda that has the LCR chanting along. “Zzzonked” is another first, the band choosing to film it (see the link below), which of course is the cue for chaos to ensue. A question posed to them before the tour was that with so much going on, how hard would Common Dreads be to play? On this evidence, easy enough. “No Sleep Tonight” is huge, and when Chris Batten’s microphone cuts out the crowd supplies the words for him. “Step Up” is a pounding beast, one of the best hardcore songs written anywhere for a while that also happens to contain a wonky breakdown. “Hectic” and “Juggernauts” are exactly what they say on the tin, and “Fanfare For The Conscious Man” surely one of the most uplifting protest songs ever written. “Hectic” in particular is a joy: lyrics about White Lightning and Donkey Kong combine with a filthy synth break and epic outro to make one of the most fun and thrilling live songs you’ll ever hear. It’s “Juggernauts” though, that perhaps sums up the new Enter Shikari best; more mature and more aware both musically and socially, yet still capable of creating chaos on the dance floor and in the pit. The joker in the pack is “The Jester”; what starts out as lounge jazz goes through shrieky metal through to a bouncing electro riff before swirling back to lounge jazz again without leaving you time to catch your breath. It’s completely and utterly bonkers, yet it somehow works. Old favourites like “Mothership” and “Sorry, You’re Not A Winner” whip the crowd into a frenzy, but tonight it’s the Common Dreads show.
It can be summed up by Rou Reynolds’ line to the crowd, “We’re Enter Shikari; smashing genres’ useless boundaries since 2003”. Here’s hoping they continue to do so for many years to come.
 
Samuel Honywill
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrDse_2lEDA