ENTER SHIKARI | LIVE REVIEW

Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff, Tue 23 Feb

For up-and-coming bands, the transition from academies to arenas is no easy one. But electronic rock fusionists Enter Shikari, making their debut performance topping the bill at Cardiff Motorpoint Arena tonight, manage to make it look easy.

Almost 50 years on from Pink Floyd performing the first surround-sound rock concert, Enter Shikari are using a quadrophonic sound system, allowing the music to travel from all sides of the arena. Audio geek or not, you can’t help but wonder why this set up isn’t more of a standard at rock shows.

From the very start, with all due respect to the supporting cast of a reunited King Blues and The Wonder Years, the sound and production for Enter Shikari leaves us no questions as to who the headline act is. For all the video effects, audio effects and general flash floods of colour, it seems like everything about the stage show has been carefully coordinated with the music to make as much of an impact on the crowd as possible.

Carefully coordinated being something that can just as easily be said about the songs themselves. It of course helps that tracks from latest album The Mindsweep are the sound of Enter Shikari at their most potential-reaching and diverse, from frontman Rou Reynolds channelling his best Thom Yorke falsetto on Dear Future Historians… to the System Of A Down-style shout-along-if-you-can-decipher-the-time-signatures of There’s A Price On Your Head.

In amongst this sonic masterclass, however, there’s a sense of humour running throughout. Reynolds improvises a song about how he shouldn’t be wearing three layers on his top half at the end of Radiate, and Slipshod sees him breaking a vase to the music. That’s before we even get on to the less-than-complimentary videos about Donald Trump and David Cameron, the kind of thing you’d expect if Billy Bragg’s concerts were designed by The Prodigy’s visuals team.

Finishing the concert is a fantastic rendition of The Appeal & The Mindsweep 2. Their ability to write a good sequel is the only thing stopping Enter Shikari from being truly cinematic this evening.

words ALEC EVANS