ENTER SHIKARI // Get in the Mindsweep Van for the Final Time

Oct 19, 2016 / WORDS Tom Hersey / PHOTOS Matt Warrell / Preview of what's inside Issue #47

On night number two of their five date run across Australia, Enter Shikari’s tour manager Simon greets me outside the Triffid’s band room. It’s a dreary, rainy Brisbane evening, but it doesn’t seem like Simon’s had a moment to contemplate the weather. He walks and talks quickly, seems to be stressed. I don’t think anything of it. He’s a tour manager, being stressed and harried is part of the job.

As he walks me to the band’s dressing room, he gives me a brief rundown of all the problems he had to contend with at the venue of Shikari’s Melbourne show. He explains that the show was rad, but it was a clusterfuck trying to set everything up.

To have such a bad day on a tour has got to weigh on a band, but when Simon introduces me to vocalist Rou Reynolds, guitarist Rory Clewlow, bassist Chris Batten and drummer Rob Rolfe, they all seem pretty upbeat about their whirlwind Australian tour—the last on The Mindsweep cycle. Upbeat, but tired. As we go outside and grab a seat in the Triffid’s beer garden and before they’re mobbed by a bunch of really polite fans who want to get photos, the quartet discuss the run of dates, unusual beer drinking customs and what’s coming next for Enter Shikari.

The crowd had so much passion … I couldn’t believe that was a Monday night crowd, they were so loud.
[ Rou Reynolds ]

“We flew in Sunday evening, I think, was it Monday … this is what jetlag does,” Rou sighs. His hands are clasped over the top of his water bottle and his posture has the weak hunch of sleep deprivation. “No it was Sunday night, so we just had the one evening and then we did the first show in Melbourne on Monday. And just loads of shit went wrong at the venue. Like something was up with the PA and part of the desk wasn’t grounded so there was this horrible static screeching coming from the speakers and that took ages to sort out, so the whole show ran behind. That was a pretty stressful first day, but the show was such a release. I haven’t enjoyed myself that much on stage for quite some time. The crowd had so much passion … I couldn’t believe that was a Monday night crowd, they were so loud. When you can hear a crowd through your in-ear monitors, that’s when you know, ‘OK, these guys have got some lungs on them’, so that was wicked.”