Enter Shikari Sets Los Angeles On Fire
Article written by and photos by Natalie Ryan
On November 9th, British rock band Enter Shikari played the last show of their biggest headline tour to date with You Me At Six and Yours Truly. The event took place at The Belasco in downtown Los Angeles, a historic theater with a capacity of 1,500. What was the final show of the tour would also be the final show You Me At Six would ever play in North America, as they are disbanding following their last UK tour next year. Enter Shikari and You Me At Six are longtime friends but had never toured together until now.
To kick off the show, the Australian pop-punk band Yours Truly played a short but highly energetic and fun set. The three-piece currently consists of vocalist Mikaila Delgado, guitarist Teddie Winder-Haron, and drummer Henry Beard. Delgado talked about how special You Me At Six was to her, and that she definitely used to run a Tumblr blog dedicated to the band, so this was quite a full-circle moment. They brought out Josh Franceschi, You Me At Six’s vocalist, to perform the song he’s featured on, “Hallucinate” (which is possibly only the second time it’s been performed that way live). Yours Truly recently released sophomore studio album “TOXIC”, which they played a few songs from including their closer, “Call My Name”. There were more than a few die-hard fans in the pit screaming every word of each song they played. The Australian band clearly can’t come to the US often, and most of the crowd was not familiar with them, but they absolutely left the stage with some new fans that night.
Next up was You Me At Six, English rock band from Weybridge, Surrey. The band consists of lead singer Josh Franceschi, guitarists Max Helyer and Chris Miller, bassist Matt Barnes, and drummer Daniel Flint. In February 2024, the band announced that they would be embarking on a farewell tour to celebrate their 20th anniversary and will break up in 2025, when the tour is over. They have released six studio albums and one live album, received notable awards from publications such as Kerrang! and Rock Sound, have sold out headline tours, and have had several top ten albums on the UK Albums Chart. You Me At Six may have been supporting on this tour, but they are an iconic band who have churned out bangers for the better part of the last 20 years. By the way that the fans showed up for them in Los Angeles, they may as well have been headlining the show. They started the set off with fan-favorite “Room to Breathe”, from their 2014 album “Cavalier Youth”. Franceschi later mentioned how much they love LA, and that’s where that particular album was made. Before playing “Bite My Tongue”, one of their heavier songs, Franceschi talked about what YMAS and Enter Shikari have in common: they both love a mosh pit. Next, Rou Reynolds, vocalist of Enter Shikari, came on stage to perform “No Future? Yeah Right” the song he is featured on from “Truth Decay”, the last album from YMAS, released in 2023. Before playing “Night People”, Franceschi asked for the lights to be turned off and for the crowd to light up the room with their flashlights. He expressed how much everyone meant to him at that moment and said “the only thing in this room is love and acceptance” before singing the emotional song, with misty eyes in the audience. The crowd was louder than ever for “Underdog”, one of their most beloved songs, followed by “Beautiful Way” the last song they would ever play in that venue, city, country, and continent. I could feel the love and the sadness of the moment all the same, and I am so glad we were able to experience You Me At Six one last time.
Find You Me At Six at their individual links below:
The night was still going, and everyone was fired up to see Enter Shikari finish off the tour. The British band consists of lead vocalist and keyboardist Rou Reynolds, guitarist Rory Clewlow, bassist Chris Batten, and drummer Rob Rolfe. The eccentric band doesn’t concern themselves with fitting into a box musically, and has a wide range of elements from post-hardcore to electronica. Their lyrics delve into the personal and political, and are not just a noise band. When seeing Enter Shikari, one moment you might feel like you’re at a sweaty hardcore show, the next it might be a rave or even a poetry slam. To start off, Reynolds took the stage by himself to perform the spoken word intro track “System...” immediately followed by the entire band joining him for the subsequent “...Meltdown”, from their 2012 album “A Flash Flood of Colour”. It’s hard not to feed off the energy of Reynolds throwing his body around the stage at every chance he gets. A crowd favorite and personal highlight of the set was a remix version of “Goldfǐsh ~” from last year’s album “A Kiss for the Whole World”, with an introduction by Reynolds saying “we are here to control pitch and tempo in order to manipulate your emotions”. The band recently released companion album to AKFTWW, “Dancing on the Frontline”, this year, including new remixes and live sessions of songs from the album. Another favorite was “Losing My Grip”, which went incredibly hard live. During an acoustic version of “Juggernauts”, Reynolds broke out two impressions of Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash, which were spot-on. The band left the stage after “The Dreamer’s Hotel”, when a pre-recorded call-and-response message motivated the encore chanting. Enter Shikari came back out to play “(pls) set me on fire”, most-played hit “Sorry You’re Not a WInner”, and finished with “A Kiss for the Whole World x”. Enter Shikari is a band that doesn’t care about labels or fitting in; they take big swings, and it makes for the perfect live show.
