Special thanks to Destroy All Lines
Photos & words by: Joshua Stroud
Tech issues nearly pushed doors back by an hour, with the line outside Metropolis Fremantle wrapping around the corner before anyone had even made it inside. Normally that kind of delay starts killing the mood pretty quickly, but honestly, if anything, it just made everybody more restless for the night to finally kick off. By the time people got through the doors the room already felt hot, packed and ready to explode.
Chez opened the night and immediately brought the mood up with a set that felt cheeky, loose and genuinely fun. This is a band that were clearly enjoying themselves and getting the room moving early. You could see people instantly relax into the night, beers up, heads nodding and the crowd starting to properly wake up after the long wait outside.
Then Grandson hit the stage and by the reaction of the crowd you would’ve thought they were the main act.
From the first song the floor erupted into a massive whirlpool of people while the crowd screamed every word back toward the stage. The energy in the room completely changed. It didn’t feel like a normal show anymore, it felt like everyone in that venue was there for the exact same reason. What stood out most was how tight the whole band sounded together. Heavy when it needed to be, massive when it opened up, but still carrying that raw live feeling that makes shows like this memorable.
Perth crowds can sometimes take a little while to really let go, but there was none of that here. It genuinely felt like the venue had been hanging out for Grandson. Every breakdown got a bigger reaction than the one before it while the wall of death turned into pure madness in the middle of the room. People were dancing through pits, crowd surfers kept rolling over the barrier and security barely had a second to breathe the entire set.
By the end of Grandson’s set the crowd was drenched. Sweaty, loud and completely alive, all waiting to see what came next.
Then Enter Shikari walked out and the screams and chants were deafening.
Phones instantly shot into the air, people climbed onto shoulders and the whole front half of the venue surged forward before the band had even started. Then the first hit landed and Metropolis absolutely lost its mind.
The pit genuinely never stopped moving.
Circle pits rolled into walls of death, crowd surfers came nonstop over the barrier and every single time it looked like people might finally slow down another song kicked the room straight back into it again. Enter Shikari have always had a reputation for being unpredictable live, but seeing it inside a venue like Metropolis made everything feel even more intense.
I’ve seen some incredible live performances before, but Sorry You’re Not A Winner was something else entirely. The crowd was so loud during parts of it that the vocals from the stage were almost drowned out completely. Every lyric came screaming back from the room while bodies flew overhead and the entire floor moved like one giant wave.
Then came the chants.
Hearing an entire room scream “AND STILL WE WILL BE HERE, STANDING LIKE STATUES” back at the band was one of those moments that honestly gives you goosebumps no matter how many gigs you’ve been to. It stopped feeling like crowd participation and started feeling like the whole venue had become part of the performance itself.
Musically the band sounded massive all night. Clean vocals cut through perfectly over dirty riffs, pounding drums and layers of electronics that somehow never took away from how heavy this band really is. That balance is something Enter Shikari have always done well. No matter how wild things became, there was still so much control underneath it all.
Visually though, this show felt massive.
The lighting setup deserves its own mention because it completely changed the feel of the room. Deep blue washes covered the stage before violent strobes ripped through the venue during heavier sections, turning the whole place into flashes of bodies, movement and smoke. At times frontman Rou Reynolds honestly looked like he was levitating above the stage while the entire floor below him unravelled into pure mayhem.
And somehow amongst all of that, Rou casually walking around with a wine glass between songs felt perfectly normal. Equal parts classy and completely unhinged.
That’s what makes Enter Shikari different live. There’s movement everywhere, but it never feels random. There’s humour, energy, emotion and mayhem all happening at once, and somehow they make it work better than almost anybody else.
The last song came faster than anyone wanted it to, bodies exhausted but nobody wanting the night to end, and what better choice for a final song than The Dreamer’s Hotel. The crowd got what they came for, a night they won’t forget anytime soon.
As the band finished up and walked off stage it started all over again. The chants, the screaming, the energy inside the room. There was absolutely no way this crowd was letting the band leave without an encore.
Then came Juggernauts.
I genuinely didn’t think there could’ve been that much energy left in the room, but somehow everybody found that little extra to give.
Perth gets a lot of heavy tours, but this felt different.
A reminder of why Enter Shikari shows still feel unlike anything else and why nights like this are what get people addicted to live music.
GALLERY
CHEZ
GRANDSON
ENTER SHIKARI
