Live Review: Enter Shikari - Nottingham Motorpoint Arena, Nottingham 18/11/17
It was the third night on Enter Shikari’s arena tour but the Motorpoint Nottingham was the first chance for the band to use their whole lighting production, due to the vast size of this great arena. This was also the band’s first arena they ever played.
Kicking off the night at the Motorpoint Arena were Cardiff punk-rock-grime stars, Astroid Boys. With about half the floor of the Motorpoint full Astroid Boys bounced onto stage to get the crowd going after a delay on the doors opening times. The mix of grime and punk rock is definitely something that isn’t shouted about a lot but Astroid Boys are definitely breaking down barriers as their energy and charisma gets the crowd going for sure.
The second support on the whole tour are Watford boys Lower Than Atlantis. With their huge wall of amps behind them with their logo on and risers at the front, they were here to make a statement, that they could soon themselves do their own arena shows. From the energy that Lower Than Atlantis brought with them it radiated off onto the crowd with hands being launched into the air for ‘Emily’ and lyrics of ‘Here We Go’ being sang back to the band in their final song.
T-Minus 10 minutes. Through the quadrophonic sound bustled two voices, one from the back of the room and one from the front having a conversation and informing the crowd on how long it was till ShowTime. Enter Shikari have put a lot of effort into their production for this tour, especially lighting wise with a huge rig and a massive circular screen above the Rob Rolfe’s drum riser. The lights blackout and intro ‘The Spark’ playing in the back, the band wander onstage with Rou waiting back, as the intro finishes Enter Shikari burst straight into the first track off the new album ‘The Sights’ where Rou rushes on stage to a massive scream where the energy and dance moves kick off straight away.
With Enter Shikari winning the 2017 Heavy Music Awards: Best Live Band award we knew we were in for a show. In second song ‘Solidarity’ Rou covered most of the stage, even going down to his knees, leaning backwards and screaming into the mic pointed into the air. Proving he’s one of the best front man/showman in the music scene at the minute. Shikari smashed their way through their highly energetic set with only a little blunder with Rob breaking his drumstick with it flying off and hitting the tiniest button, which cut all the electrics on stage. But over than that their set was high speed and exhilarating. It got to the stage where Shikari slowed things down with Rou hopping off stage and jumping on a mini B-stage in the center of the crowd to play ‘Airfield’ and ‘Adieu’ on a grand piano draped with an Enter Shikari flag. Drummer Rob Rolfe joined Rou on the platform to play drums in ‘Adieu’ which they then finished the song with the Routron 5000 Remix.
Shikari then took their incredible live set a step further, by playing four songs in eight minutes all at 147 BPM, which took the roof off the Motorpoint. Shikari headed off stage after their four songs in eight minutes then came back on to a massive cheer and applause for an encore. They kicked it off with ‘Redshift’ then finished on lead track off the new album ‘Live Outside’.
Overall, Shikari took huge risks in their set and production but I would say they definitely pulled it off, proving they can headline arenas and put on a huge show.
Photography by Ami Ford
Words by Jake Haseldine