Enter Shikari: Believe The Hype

May 24th, 2007

Being the bitter, jaded music industry vet I am (four plus years is a lifetime, trust me) it’s rare that a band just knocks me on my ass with how genuine, how exciting and how generally awesome they are. Enter Shikari did just that when I was covering Vancouver Virgin Festival this past weekend – and I got to see them AGAIN at Toronto’s famous El Mocambo last night (with Toronto’s own Cauterize opening!)

Imagine taking Alexisonfire‘s scream/sing punk-hardcore dynamic, Andrew WK‘s wild rock abandon, Protest The Hero‘s stop-start time-signature acrobatics and add in some house/jungle beats – wind them all up together with a live show that’s so nuts that it inspires both ballistic pogoing and spontaneous human pyramid creation in the audience…that’s approximately what they’re like, but still doesn’t do them justice.

To set the scene a bit more clearly – halfway through the set, lead guy Rou Reynolds stops and peers slyly out at the audience – looking not unlike Malcolm McDowell in Kubrick’s classic film A Clockwork Orange. He announces that it’s time for “a remix” and taps the appropriate buttons on his electronics console, whereupon a jittery UK dance beat blasts from the PA. The entire band puts down their instruments and unashamedly dances up a storm to the delight of the audience. And of course the audience gets in on the act too. Just as the beat peaks, the band dons instruments and dives into the next song. It’s carefully choreographed, but unexpected and even dangerous; for a band like this to veer that far from its chosen genre’s conventions is a ballsy move. Yet they do it with such guileless joy, you can’t help but get down with them.

And they’re completely unaffected, friendly British dudes who aren’t even signed to a label yet – though they’re selling out venues in the UK and reached #4 on the charts there. Let this be yet ANOTHER heads up to my friends in label land…given the right exposure these guys could break like Alexis did…

Yes yes, I know – the British press will champion basically anyone who even so much as farts on record as the Next Big Thing…but in this case, believe the hype.

Oh and they’re coming back in September…look for an exclusive interview with the Enter Shikari guys on MuchMusic.com in the days ahead!

Posted on Thursday, May 24th, 2007 at 1:47 pm by Justin and is filed under Concerts & Events.