Tonight at Harpers Ferry, Enter Shikari‘s singer Rou had something rather stunning to say about performing at Bamboozle the previous day:
“Every band sounded exactly the same.”
There was more in that quote than just the one line, pretty much along the lines of how terrible all the bands were, which is a bit interesting simply because Enter Shikari’s trancecore travels along the same path as a good chunk of the emo and screamo acts that played Bamboozle this year, although they do have a pretty distinct sound in comparison to many a Taking Back Sunday wannabe. In fact, it’s by no stretch of the imagination to think that Enter Shikari’s mix of techno and hardcore had some impact on the “scrunk scene“: Enter Shikari hit it big in the UK in 2006 with a couple of singles that mixed post-hardcore’s heavy, low-end guitar work and juxtaposition between screaming and singing and trance’s lush electronic compositions, and then hit the top of the charts in the spring of ’07 with Take To The Skies. The band really touched down in the US via videogames, as a couple of their big hits made their way into EA Sports NHL 2008 and Madden Football 2008. It isn’t a stretch of the imagination to think that out in Arizona, the future members of Brokencyde picked up Madden Football and found some musical inspiration… or something like that.
Enter Shikari explained their Bamboozle predicament further on their Twitter:
Check out Bostonist tomorrow for a review of their show at Harpers.
Enter Shikari – “Sorry You’re Not A Winner” (video):
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4MiC67seUY]
i was talking with my friends about how much bamboozle seemed like a “myspace festival” considering how 90% of the kids there were horribly scene, and most of the bands really did have nothing special to prove.
though i will say that it was one of the greatest weekends ive had in a long time, and there were a ton more pros than cons. i saw tons of bands that ive been listening to for years, and i saw a few bands ive seen before. the scene kids were annoying, but you could always shove them out of the way. i didnt catch enter shikari, only because i havent listened to them much, so i didnt necessarily try too hard. but yeah, i stayed away from most of those small stage sets because they were all those small bands that sound like one another.
Yeah, what’s funny is I went to Give It A Name in London a couple of years back, which Enter Shikari also performed at, and it was more scene than any festival I’d seen before or since… then again, a good portion of the acts were American, but the kids certainly dressed to the 9… or rather 10.
And I enjoyed myself there… it was a pretty great experience getting to see a bunch of bands from my neck of the woods in a foreign country, see how the kids were living and what they looked forward to, and see a couple of fantastic sets. And there may always be those “annoying” bands or individuals, but it’s all about finding what you like at a festival and enjoying that.
exactly.
half the bands at bamboozle were bands i’d usually laugh at, but i just had the mind set that i was just going to have as much fun as possible, and i wound up meeting a lot of cool people and having the time of my life. going for the whole weekend was worth it, definitely going next year.