On Friday, February 23rd, it was time for the Enter Shikari show at AFAS Live in Amsterdam. Two more bands were on the bill that night: Fever 333 and Blackout Problems.
First up were Blackout Problems from Munich, Germany. For them, it was a special day, namely the release day of their album RIOT. A group of fans at the barricade brought handmade signs saying “happy riot release” to celebrate this, and some other fans were blowing bubbles. The venue slowly filled up during their set, while the people already in were enjoying the music.
Up next was Fever 333. If you’ve never heard of them or seen them live, you’re up for one hell of a ride. One can expect the craziest things and even then they will still surprise you with their stunts. Starting their set with ‘Burn It’, the whole band was already going crazy, with singer Jason Aalon Butler jumping and running around the stage. One of the things this band is known for is standing up for what they believe in and speaking out. The song ‘Made An America’ was dedicated to Palestine. “Let’s be free and liberate ourselves tonight while we’re here and thank you for letting us be free.” is what Butler said before jumping into their newest song ‘READY ROCK’. He then jumped down from the stage and climbed over the barricade to join the mosh pit, and a few moments later crowd-surfed back to the stage.
The crowd chanted “333” and Butler took this moment to thank everyone: “we come from such small shows and as black people, we are not often represented, so thank you for believing in us and giving us a safe space.” The venue apparently did not have enough things for Butler to go crazy with, so he decided to take the matter into his own hands: stacking three monitors on top of each other, he climbed onto the top one and jumped down with the last breakdown.
At 9 pm on the dot, Rou Reynolds walked out on stage and did a spoken word rendition of ‘System…’, with the fans screaming along with every word. The band joined on stage with big LED screens at the back of the stage lighting up brightly behind them. The crowd immediately went crazy and many people went crowd surfing. Reynolds showed off his dance moves, and the energy was through the roof. The production of this show can be described as next level, with confetti, lasers, sparkling fire, and of course everything on the LED screens. For the song ‘Jailbreak’, light beams were put up which made it look like the band was behind jail bars, which then “broke” open when Reynolds sang “I won’t be held captive”. After these lyrics, he proceeded to jump down the stage for a crowd surf. For the song ‘Sssnakepit’, the band’s videographer joined the crowd with a 360-degree camera and Reynolds encouraged everyone to create a huge circle pit around him. The band’s latest release ‘Losing My Grip’, featuring Jason Aalon Butler from Fever 333, could obviously not be skipped this tour, so Butler joined the band on stage for the song.
Even if you did not know the song titles, one could make a pretty accurate guess from the visuals that showed on the screens, for example: there was a huge goldfish for the song ‘goldfĭsh ~’ and lots of fire for the song ‘(pls) set me on fire’. For a part of the song ‘Solidarity’, Reynolds suddenly appeared at the back of the venue, and after he was done there he sat on the shoulders of a lucky fan who walked him through the crowd back to the stage.
The band ended their set with the classic ‘Sorry, You’re Not a Winner’, for which everyone joined in for the iconic claps, and ‘A Kiss for the Whole World x’. The level of production of this show was admirable. and the band truly put all their effort and energy into their set. If you ever have the chance to see Enter Shikari live, it’s definitely worth every penny!
