Live Review: Enter Shikari, Hacktivist

Rounding off the edges of their The Redshift tour, UK four-piece Enter Shikari bring their hectic, ad-hoc-style post-hardcore tracks back to Australia, loading fellow British nu-metal mates Hacktivist onto the bandwagon.

A decent turnout for a Tuesday night in the Valley, the fellas have been clearly able to persuade the masses to turn up on a school night just to throw down in the pit. 

Previously touring Australia in 2014, Hacktivist return in the wake of their debut LP Outside The Box, which conveniently includes vocal cameos from Enter Shikari’s frontman, Rou Reynolds. Although we can all feel it coming, it doesn't take long until the pocket-rocket himself, Reynolds, takes to the mic to help the five-piece out on Taken, dedicating the track to British metalcore band Architects following the death of guitarist Tom Searle.

Although no more semi-surprising cameos present themselves during Hacktivist’s set, they do pump out their famous heavy cover of Ni**as In Paris and, oh boy, is it amazing!? Even Kanye West would have been impressed. Rap-metal may have broken through and seemingly finished with Limp Bizkit in the early noughties, but Hacktivist are surely on the road to bringing it back, all with a political twist. And with a live show full of punk-jumps, deep-bass breakdowns and double frontman antics, it’s easy to see why these fellas are a must-have for EU festival line-ups. 

While waiting in the northern Queensland-esque heat of the mosh, the lights blackout and an ominous British voice rants orders of obedience before he realises he is surrounded by free-thinking people. This type of introduction is no surprise to fans of Enter Shikari, but it is nonetheless a theatrical live music experience one wouldn’t usually experience at The Triffid.

As a spotlight flashes, reflecting the narrator’s feelings of panic, the four-piece emerge and, as Reynolds smashes a floor tom along with the crowd chanting, "And still we will be here standing like statues," you know shit is about to go down with Solidarity. The set is jam-packed full of old favourites and new releases, including The One True Colour, Sorry You’re Not A Winner and Destabilise. An aspect of Enter Shikari’s show that never ceases to impress is their ability to mash up their own tracks, scattering and smooshing bits and bobs, from their five albums, together to make one big, chaotic, fun mess, most notably with Slipshod mashed up with The Jester, and The Last Garrison meshed with No Sleep Tonight. Complete with broken mic stands, a crowd-surfing Rory Clewlow and flying limbs in a heckers circle pit, it is everything and more than you’d expect from an Enter Shikari show.