Enter Shikari- October 5th 2009 at UEA LCR- review

Over a thousand people filled into the fairly small arena thrilled to see the ‘post-hardcore rock band’ with support from The Devil Wears Prada and ‘dub step’ group True Tiger.

True tiger started the gig off straight away, getting the crowd moving a little. Circle pits occurred even during their short act. I was very surprised to see a lot of the crowd joining in during this up beat set, especially shocked to see that people where already walking out of the pit with nose bleeds!

I thought that the music wasn’t played loud enough and their music in general wasn’t clear apart from one of their songs where the beat was more apparent.

 

As if everyone had been told, as soon as Mike Hranica (Devil Wears Prada) and the rest of the band walked onto stage, at least 2 large circle pits where made! Many people who where standing on the stairs and around the bar, ran down into the arena to join in the circle pits made by the metalcore band. Just as expected many t-shirts and faces where covered in blood made by nose bleeds, by the fury and excitement of the moshing. By the time they played ‘HTML Rulez D00d’ everyone was moving in the arena, more circle pits made. By the time their set had finished you could no longer recognize peoples faces, smeared with sweat and bruises emerging.

 

The change between The Devil Wears Prada and Enter Shikari was exceedingly fast, everybody trying to push closer to the front. Because of this about ¼ of the people in the crowd fell to floor. ‘Rou’ seemed very excited to come back to Norwich for their first stop on their tour, by having earlier this year released their 2nd album, in June, Common Dreads.

 

The main event of the evening was the filming for their new video from Common Dreads, ‘Zzzonked’, and camera men were in the crowd filming. Within seconds the lights had fallen off the cameras and the guys had fallen to the floor. Everyone hyped up, lots of people were stage diving and more people filling into the already tightly packed space. Rou even jumped into the crowd! The gig went on with the same energy- Rou and Rob entertaining the crowd. “Do you like my new extras to my drum kit? I don’t know what half of it is but doesn’t it look great?!”

 

 Rou played on his acoustic, ‘Gap In The Fence’, playing along with the crowd by saying “I bet you haven’t seen a skinny white kid in shorts playing an acoustic guitar?” The song sounded very different, everyone was jumping and joining in. Personally I think that the song sounds better live than from the CD. They played a range of old and new songs. All of them including ‘Sorry You’re Not a Winner’ and ‘Juggernauts’ had the crowd going wild. I’m sure no one went home with non-bruised skin or dry hair.

 

 Overall I think that the gig went very well, everyone seemed to enjoy it, (bruises and sweat to prove it!) personally I thought I was the best gig that I have been to! Brilliant range of supports, lots of people and circle pits. Generally fantastic atmosphere!

 

Annalise Taylor