Words by: Belinda Quick
Photos by: Missy Smiley
Special thanks to Destroy All Lines
“We must earn life once it has been awarded us. Life asks for rewards back because it has favored us with animation. So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us… it can revitalize us amidst it all” – Ray Bradbury, Zen and the Art of Writing
It’s reasonable to speculate that throughout the years, everyone’s been asked for an answer to the classic psychological question: ‘If you could invite any guest, living or dead, to a dinner party, who would you choose and why?’
Pondered playfully by peers and professionals comparing complementarity, the philosophical prompt once popular has become cliche in modern times. Certainly not a question I’ve been asked recently, when the repressed memory flooded back with genuine sincerity, it prompted closer consideration of why now?
Preparing for an electrifying evening with ENTER SHIKARI, the headliner’s latest record blasting, the transcendentalists struck this new chord. Their eighth album released without warning in April, LOSE YOUR SELF is a masterpiece of musical diversity and intellectual depth; a work of technology and art designed to entertain and challenge. Its live premiere, alongside a creative of similar persuasion, GRANDSON, encouraged much more than common concert anticipation.
Standing side-by-side with FRIENDS OF FRIENDS momentarily occupied in the photo pit, the blissfully Human live music experience begins. Britpop nods to vocalist Barnaby Baker’s UK heritage blends Australian indie into a Morphine mixture of “lethal modern rock” to produce a musical match made in Heaven. Beckoning Adelaide’s audience ‘stay for a while’ with them in REAL LIFE, RIGHT NOW, I Like Ya couldn’t be more Happier obliged, as the trio stirs excitement for the journey to Find Myself tonight.
Jordan Benjamin, aka Grandson, stands with one foot poised, intently locking onto Miles Elze’s pulsating beat; touring bassist Maxwell Urasky and guitarist Leo Varella encircling the drummer, the band of brothers prepare to strike the Bells of War. Continuing the long line of politically motivated hiphop-hardcore artists decrying cultural entropy (the Autonomous Delivery Robot convenience trap), Benjamin questions the voluminous affirmation of support from the crowd.
Protestations and Oh Nos combatted by a clear “Fuck yeah!” 2026 marks the singer-songwriter’s return visit to Australia, where Grandson is adoringly respected for preaching “unity in this hideous world”. Contrasting acts of Self Immolation, handwritten reminders to “Stay in the moment” adorn the setlist, exposing the loving truth from the Little White Lies their ferociousness projects.
A passionate performance achieves another dimension of meaning, with “one of the greatest protest songs ever written. I want you to ask yourself: is this a song written so long ago, or is it true today?” BOB DYLAN’s Masters of War is reimagined for our all-too familiar context, Grandson ends as they began. Dancing around the INERTIA of their drummer, issuing a final call to action: end the Brainrot, apathy is acceptance, Blood ≠ Water, prepare to LOSE YOUR SELF, get ready to Enter Shikari.
“Hello darlings!” ES’s charismatic frontman Rou Reynolds croons to raucous applause. Switching between mic stands, segregating swoon from scream, the performative choice compartmentalises the changeling nature of the band’s musicology. Transcending a discographic Labyrinth within the opening tracks, a pattern which persists throughout the performance, the dynamism of Undercover Agents, backing vocalists Chris Batten (bass) & Rory Clewlow (guitars), accentuate Reynolds’ request to (pls)set me on fire.
Channelling Nietzsche and flavours of fellow UK genre-defiers THE PRODIGY, the collaboration with industrial-electronic duo WARGASM tumults between the blackness of The Void and staged lightning bolts which Stare Back at the crowd. Rock turned rave at The Flick of a Switch, that Shikari are producing music of this calibre in 2026 is testament to their strength. Personified by Rob Rolfe’s Bloodshot drumming, the message is resonant.
The inexhaustible energy on-and-off stage is reciprocal, and equal for tracks new and old. A debut hit, Sorry, You’re Not A Winner sees excitement Take to the Skies and turn the pressure on Hindley Street Music Hall’s already heaving dancefloor; crowdsurfers fly toward the ultimate Rabble Rouser, Reynolds, whose ensuing monologue intends to Find Out The Hard Way just who’s heard the newest record. Silhouettes holding vinyl records rise, the frontman responds with Quelle Surprise, “there it is!”
Sharing the band’s delight, we’re invited to “yell, to spread the love around, with all the venom and passion you can muster!” Screaming the rallying cry from the 2011 track, ‘If you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything’ remasters Malcolm X’s iconic words and remixes itself into a dubstep anthem. Batten momentarily switching bass for an electronica multimachine, The Last Garrison is an animated “one and a half minutes or madness” preceding the final ode from LOSE YOUR SELF.
It’s OK is a spoken word symphony, an allegory damning the norm that ‘sticks and stones broke my bones, so it’s only fair that I hurt you’. Delivered deliberately but with kindness, Enter Shikari, magnanimous hosts of {The Dreamer’s Hotel}, share Juggernauts of truth with the warmth of whiskey, like Bradbury before them, using art as an armoured messenger.
Men who would have undoubtedly revelled in each others’ company, drive dinner party conversation in a reality that can never truly exist, but perhaps that’s the very point. ‘What is true is not always right’, so, rather than wish for a fantasy, marvel at the reality. Open the book and play that record; be in this wonderful world.
GALLERY
FRIENDS OF FRIENDS
GRANDSON
ENTER SHIKARI
