"Yeah, we're more polite. Bitches is a much less offensive term." bassist Rory Clewlow grins into his microphone, adjusting his guitar strap and looking ridiculously at ease.
Enter Shikari have a good reason to be so relaxed. They've enjoyed huge success since their first album and yesterday was the day that their new album, A Flash Flood Of Colour got to Number 1 in the midweek charts, something that the band proudly drew attention to at their sold out gig at The Hippodrome in Kingston.
If this blog was like twitter and I had to sum last night up in a sentence, or just in one word, it would be energetic. To say the least. If you don't like having your personal space invaded, don't go to an Enter Shikari gig. Although, how packed it was might have been more to do with the fact that The Hippodrome has a capacity of 800, and there were around 1400 people there.
I didn't mind too much though, and found a good spot on the stairs where I could actually see over the heads of the audience, which seemed to be made up of mostly 6 foot something men (being short can be difficult).
Enter Shikari's support was a band from Liverpool named Fine Young Firecrackers. Although they had a great stage presence, their music was slightly too generic for my liking. Admittedly, they did a brilliant job on warming up the crowd and had everybody singing along to one of their songs.
I've said how good Enter Shikari are on here before, but I never could have predicted how great they sound live. Last night they seemed to radiate energy. The crowd (and the band) cheerfully ignored the "No Crowdsurfing Please" signs and leapt off the stairs and railings, jumped, moshed, shouted and sang. At one point Rory appeared amongst the crowd, perching on the railings at the top of the stairs. He chucked water over the crowd and then dived straight into it.
Its always great when a band looks like they're enjoying themselves as much as the crowd, and that was certainly the case last night. They were charging around the stage, throwing the microphone out into the crowd and a couple of times Rou leapt into the audience, impressively still managing to sing (or shout) at the same time. At one point a coat landed on bassist Chris Batten's face and he just shook if off and did a comedic "who did that?" look at the crowd. It's easy to see why Enter Shikari have such a strong fan base; not only do they make great music, they're so likeable.
Enter Shikari's new album sounded incredible live, highlights were 'Sssnakepit' and 'Hello Tyrannosaurus, Meet Tyrannicide'. On a stage lit up by the giant upside-down triangle, Enter Shikari also played some of their classic songs to please their older fans, including 'Juggernauts' which was received with much enthusiasm from the crowd.
By the end of the night I was covered in sweat, water and God knows what else, I had been punched, kicked, elbowed and even sat on, and had lost everybody I was with, but it was completely worth it. It was a night of pure, beautiful chaos and has only confirmed my belief that Enter Shikari are one of the greatest, most unique bands around at the moment and will hopefully continue to be for a very long time.
