Enter ShikariTwenty paces in and we’re confronted with volume, finesse and a track that champions System Of A Down’s Toxicity more than slightly. Sydney’s Hellions are working their biggest Brisbane stage like pros, and the ferocious young punks are guaranteeing mad fun early with choppy, innovative heaviness. Dre Faivre is the kind of frontman you could take home to meet your mother, but beneath the banter and smiles lies a fire that burns intensely. If these guys were headlining this venue in a few years, it would be hard to act surprised.
The early raw grit is soon polished into melodic post-hardcore by world-class Canberra crew Hands Like Houses, and already a night that was destined for sonic unpredictability has given us fire and water, angles and curves. Hands Like Houses are one of those bands that make rock music sound beautiful – Trenton Woodley has a spectral voice that rises high and hits your nerve, while the subtle technicality woven into songs like Introduced Species, Wisteria and closer, I Am, make the band’s goal of celebrating vibrations an easy ambition to attain.
A polite crowd then turns into a football hooligan firm when Brit rabblerousers Enter Shikari arrive all guns blazing, ready to sign off their Mindsweep Australian tour with a filthy big exclamation point. The first half-hour is an absolute hurricane, featuring Destabilise, Radiate, Sorry, You’re Not A Winner and The Last Garrison mashed up into Juggernauts. The engulfing breakdown that bridges those two latter tracks is seamless – a breeze. It’s a summary of where the four-piece are currently at in their career – a band at the height of their powers, with the ability to send a crammed floor into convulsions at the drop of a beat.
Rou Reynolds is unusually quiet on the social and political preach tonight, instead letting his pointed lyrical content do the talking. The boys are having an unadulterated good time though – the vocalist provides a quick few verses through a shoe, Rob Rolfe is inciting the rave moves from behind the kit and bassist Chris Batten even finds time to deliver The Paddington Frisk from the centre of a volatile circle pit, eventually completing the song on some lad’s shoulders.
After a hectic take on Mothership and Anaesthetist, the band give themselves, and us punters, a breather, before tripling up on an encore. They show us a powerful refrain with Constellations, provide a hospitality freakout via Slipshod, then bring the party to a right close with Sssnakepit. To try and pigeonhole this band is to do the quartet a massive disservice. Genres are irrelevant when Enter Shikari are leading the room – just hold on tight and try to survive.
