15th January 2019 Enter Shikari played Llandudno and I had what was probably the most surreal gig experience I have ever had, but how to word it so that I can present it to all of you? Well lets start with some figures shall we, Llandudno has a population of a little over 20,000, in comparison to that the previous show was in a city with a population of 329,000 (Leicester), Liverpool (491,000) the day after and even the other show which it was reported had slow ticket sales (Inverness) is home to 64,000 people, so to see Llandudno on a tour poster was to start off with pretty bizarre. Aside from the size of the town the demographic is mainly over 50’s, during my six years living there practically everyone I met and was friends with dismissed any music I listened to as “screamo” so going into yesterday my skepticism about the sort of turnout the show would get was very high. To throw in with all of that even the people I know who are doing most of the tour turned their nose up at Llandudno! In the days in the run up to the show my curiosity was off the scale and I had tried a few times to find out how many tickets had been sold to no avail, I never really thought one show could bring a music scene to North Wales but poor ticket sales for one of the best known UK “rock” bands would certainly keep any potential music scene away.
The day of the show started off with sightseeing with our friend who was visiting from Germany, i’ll give him the claim of being the only overseas visitor for the Llandudno show, exploring castle walls a few hours before Enter Shikari is something I can’t say that I have done before. As the day crept on I got to thinking about all of the places I had travelled to for Shikari when I lived in Llandudno and the thousands of miles covered, Paris, Bournemouth, Scunthorpe, London, Reading just to name a few of the places, and even though I no longer live in Llandudno this night almost sort of felt like it was a reward for all the hours and miles traveled over the years. So aside from all of the things ive just mentioned what else added to the situation to make this night my most surreal gig experience? well lets move onto the show shall we.
Tickets picked up from the box office and ready to go, we came across something I have never seen at a show … sniffer dogs on the door! One of many signs that night that Llandudno really isn’t accustom to rock shows, probably under the impression everyone would be dropping acid! Once you got past the sniffer dogs the police presence was the next thing I noticed and at this point I started to feel like this was a football game and I was in the away end as opposed to a gig. The venue itself was just a large space, Black Peaks were heading towards the end of their set playing to what at the time I best estimated at about 250 people, it was at this point that I really started to worry about the turnout tonight would get again. Black Peaks finished off their set ( which was very good by the way) and I sought out a member of security as they would definitely know how many tickets had been sold, now beforehand I had thought at best they would have sold 900 , maybe just maybe scrape 1000, worst case scenario I had imagined was a figure closer to 500…. it turns out it was much closer to that worst case, 650 tickets sold before the show and the venue capacity was 1500. Three days previous I was at Brixton Academy as part of a 5,000 sell out crowd, this was going to be some contrast! I felt obliged to talk to the security guard about how big Shikari actually are and that they were playing arenas the last tour, needless to say the guy had probably never heard of them.
A little unnerved by the sniffer dogs and the amount of police officers, and fresh with the knowledge that the venue was going to be less than half full we lingered around for Palaye Royales set, their music isnt for me but I am not in the slightest bit interested in being dragged into any drama when it comes to this band, if you’re reading this there is a high chance you know all about it so at this stage why would I even mention it. During what I think was the bands fourth song their lead singer hops into the crowd, something I have seen at shows hundreds of times and also something that is a reasonably regular occurrence during Enter Shikari sets the next thing we know the stage lights go up and everything goes quiet, Palaye Royale’s singer says something into the mic that we cant really decipher and that was it, as it turns out the venue had kicked the band off stage because the lead singer entered the crowd, in the aftermath the band posted on their social media that they had no prior warning from the venue about such restrictions, of course sections of the internet automatically assume they’re lying and that they knew but did it anyway, what I will say is this, at this stage Palaye Royale could donate thousands of pounds for charity and would still be in line for abuse from certain sections of people, I guess we won’t really know what happened here, the venue tweeted that it was the tour promoter that took the decision to remove them from stage, I can only assume that means the local promoter as it was pointed out that Palaye Royales lead singer has done this on every show of the tour and been able to complete the set, and this would again point to how unprepared Llandudno was for a rock show, I wouldnt ever have expected to see a band kicked off stage for something as innocuous as this.
Once the buzz had died down about what had happened the group I was a part of started speculating about what the Shikari set would be like and how security would handle it, Surely if they’re kicking a band off stage for entering the crowd they would be kicking out crowd surfers? in which case that figure of 650 would soon drop! would they be interfering in any potential pits? usually id laugh at that suggestion but I would have laughed at the situation in which Palaye Royale got kicked off the stage beforehand. Would anyone in the crowd be bothered or had the majority just turned up because a 
friend talked them into it ? Once the lights went down and “The Sights” hit my immediate thoughts were how bizzare it was to be seeing this in Llandudno, half empty venue or not I was determined to ensure that we had the best time we could possibly have. What happened over the next hour or so I will never forget, actual mosh pits in a small sleepy seaside town, an “and still we will be here standing like statues” chant in Llandudno, and more importantly 650 people combined to make what was quite honestly one of the best atmospheres I have experienced at a gig, maybe the surprise comes into that judgement a little, I had fairly low expectations coming into it that this was such a shock, in the best way possible. Admittedly the response to some of the material off “The Spark” was a little bit flat but by the time the quickfire round (Four of the bands faster/heavier songs remixed into one 8 minute extravaganza) what seemed like the whole of the front of the crowd had turned into one giant pit, much to the amazement of my German friend.
I have found it hard to put into words how this night was for me and what it meant to me, aside from all of these things ive mentioned all of the oddities of the town, its absence from tour posters etc, towards the end of the show the thought occured to me that it was in Llandudno that I was sent into the worst period of mental health I have ever had, Enter Shikari played a big part in dragging me out of those months, and here I was stood watching the band in that very same town, as part of a crowd that I would never have imagined Llandudno could muster. The ticket sales wont be making any other bands rush to add a stop off at the Venue Cymru on their tour but given the right band and the right, which is what Enter Shikari and January 15th was, Llandudno can stand up there with anyone.
The Compass 