St Albans band Enter Shikari have released another album in their live bootleg series – with profits going to their road crew.
The hard-working Hertfordshire quartet – Rou Reynolds, Chris Batten, Rory Clewlow and Rob Rolfe – have made available a live set entitled The Last Spark (Bootleg Series Vol. 11).
The album was recorded in front of a sold-out crowd at Brussels’ historic Ancienne Belgique venue on the final date of the band’s mammoth 2018-2019 world tour marking the end of ‘The Spark era’.
Volume 3 in the series, Live From Planet Earth, featured a recording of the group’s December 2010 show at The Forum Hertfordshire in Hatfield.
The latest release is available to download from www.entershikari.com/store as a pay-what-you-want – with a minimum donation of £3.
All profits from the release will be shared out between the band’s road crew, who would have been working across the cancelled-for-obvious-reasons Nothing Is True… album launch shows and summer 2020 festivals.
The full set is also available to stream on the band’s YouTube channel.
Enter Shikari encourage anyone streaming there to drop a donation over too, if they are able.
Visit https://youtu.be/kY1oywxIALU to watch the set.
Singer and frontman Rou Reynolds said: “Some of our crew have been with us since 2006.
“They’re our family, and make us look and sound good, often under difficult circumstances.
“The least we can do is try to support them during this difficult time.
“We would have liked to have done something for them sooner, but mixing the audio on this took us longer than expected, and they wouldn’t appreciate us rushing out shoddy art in their name.”
Rou added: “The Brussels AB is one of the best venues in the world, and one that has always been good to us on the many times we’ve played there. We’re happy to finally be able to capture a show from there on tape.”
• The Last Spark (Bootleg Series Vol. 11) tracklist is:
Intro (The Spark)
The Sights
Step Up
Labyrinth
Arguing With Thermometers
Rabble Rouser
Hectic
Gap In The Fence
Shinrin-Yoku
The Revolt Of The Atoms
There’s A Price On Your Head
Gandhi Mate, Gandhi / Mothership / Insomnia
Havoc B
Airfield
Undercover Agents
No Sleep Tonight / Stop The Clocks
The Quickfire Round: Sorry You’re Not a Winner / The Last Garrison / ...Meltdown / Anaesthetist [Reso Remix]
Take My Country Back [Acoustic]
Juggernauts
Live Outside
Outro (The Embers)
The bootleg release coincides with the launch of a new ‘Charity’ tab on the Enter Shikari store.
Growing from the band’s recent T-shirt released to raise money for the Black Visions Collective and Southern Poverty Law Center following the murder of George Floyd and resulting Black Lives Matter protests, the page will contain merchandise, music items, and rare one-off pieces with profits donated to various charitable causes.
Most prominent amongst the initial items is a one-sided blue vinyl 7” of the band’s 2019 Stop The Clocks single.
Originally planned as a ‘normal’ release, the vinyl is limited to 450 copies worldwide and has instead been donated by the band, So Recordings and The Orchard.
The full income from the sale will be split between Open Door – a charity supporting the homeless, and currently operating from St Albans’ Pioneer Club, the youth club where Enter Shikari promoted shows as teenagers – and Fans Supporting Foodbanks, a joint initiative between Liverpool FC and Everton FC supporters clubs to benefit those most affected by austerity in the city of Liverpool.
Rou had this to say on the subject: “We didn’t have time to make a Stop The Clocks 7” at the time of its original release, so it’s nice to finally have that on plastic, and especially nice that we get to use it to do something useful.
“The rise of foodbank use is an effect of shameful Government policy and failure to look after the most vulnerable people in our society.”
Enter Shikari released their sixth studio album, Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible, back in April 2020.
Critically acclaimed and embraced by fans, the album reached number two in the Official UK Album Chart upon release.
Band members have been recording live ‘lockdown versions’ of tracks from the album, along with older songs from their catalogue, and these have been complied into a handy playlist.
You can listen here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLspwx0TMFxacQmm_aVPGCW0ySaSUFPQs0
For more on the band, visit www.entershikari.com
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