Enter ShikariPerth has waiting quite some time to be reacquainted with Enter Shikari.
The lads from St Albans brought their A-game to Metros Freo on what was the first night of their national tour promoting their fourth full-length album The Mindsweep, and judging by the response, they'll have every reason to lessen their absence from our side of the country in future. Sydney up-and-comers Hellions kicked things off to a constantly building crowd, and while they brought plenty of energy to the stage with their fast-paced beats and gutsy guitar riffs, the crowd response was lukewarm at best. Hands Like Houses raised the momentum, kicking things off with Species and a bunch of tracks from their 2012 album Ground Dweller. Collectively the band seemed to become fuller and more confident as the set went on, and it was obvious by the reaction of the crowd, who gradually showed more heart, particularly when vocalist Trenton Woodley took some time to speak to the crowd in a very personal manner about the importance of the life you have and the huge amount of fortune one has had in order to be there at that very moment. They closed with new single I Am, showcasing that their best work might still be yet to come.
The buzz around the now packed venue soared over the next 20 minutes as an announcer-like voice counted down the minutes until Enter Shikari took to the stage. It was obvious those filling the venue were really only here for the main event, and when the headliners took to the stage, frontman Rou Reynolds opening with the monologue that begins The Mindsweep's opening track The Appeal & The Mindsweep I, the crowd went absolutely nuts. What made Enter Shikari's performance so great was the genuine nature of their onstage banter and willingness to get involved with the audience; Reynolds hopped off stage during Destabalise to walk over to one of the bars and continue performing, spending the entirety of Gandhi Mate, Gandhi there, before he and the rest of the band tried to converse with the rowdy collective about the metric system and Australian generalities. The mashup of hit singles The Last Garrison and Juggernauts saw people crowdsurfing all over the place, while older classic Mothership saw an intense moshpit form in the middle of the room. The crowd broke out in chant with a recurring lyric of the band's: “And still we will be here/Standing like statues” for a full minute before the band came out to encore with Solidarity and Slipshod, only to leave the stage once again. The crowd weren't having any of it, and began shouting, “Sorry, you're not! Sorry, you're not!” – it took over five minutes of continual chanting before the band, genuinely shocked, came out on stage, with guitarist Chris Batten addressing the audience: “We can't believe it, that has honestly never, ever happened to us before.” The boys picked up their instruments and launched into an impromptu performance of the hit that started it all, which “Rou wrote when he was 14 years old”, Sorry, You're Not A Winner, which will go down as one of the most enjoyable closing performances this scribe has ever seen, simply due to the fact that it was completely unrehearsed. It really speaks to the character of the band, and there's little wonder they just about sold out a large performance space on a Monday night. Come back soon, guys!
