Kaonashi @ The Shacklewell Arms (2025)

10 Jul, 2025

08/07/2025
Tour: The Real Deal Tesco Meal Deal Tour

Dormant

Heard enough snippets on their Instagram to tell that it wouldn't really be my kind of Metalcore anyway, but respect where it's due, they did really well for what was said to be their 2nd ever show they've done and played songs that were... honestly quite impressive for where they're at atm. Hope all goes well for them in their endeavours!

In place of a RYM artist page link (they only have 3 songs out atm as of writing), I've embedded a link to their linktree for those who may be interested.

Nailbreaker

Another big surprise! I almost fully expected straight up Noise/Power Electronics type shit from what I'd seen here and there of this artist, but it wasn't quite that, although he was also selling tapes of his "Harsh Noise side project" stuff too as "Neil Barker". It was more... Power Noise/Power Electronics tinged Industrial Hip-Hop, basically. Plenty noisy and heavy, and fun at that. As far as live experiences are concerned, this is an especially distinct one for me. His stage presence and energy especially makes it for me... honestly, very much like what I've aspired to do as a live music performer before... actually hitting my head and bleeding on the floor not so much, I'll admit. Yeah, this was pretty awesome!

Merch I got: Robert Knight Wine Cellar on tape

Very fun!/10

Kaonashi

I've had Kaonashi very much in my listening rotation anyway, but I'll admit to y'all that I initially mainly went to spend more irl time with Leo and the enjoyment of the show I lowkey expected to be vicarious through them, but it actually was pretty fucking fun and awesome and all the rest of it... "You already used the words 'fun' and 'awesome' just before. Retake your English exams." lol no fuck off

'We Got One' is the track that instantly sticks out to me as the main highlight of the set for me. I feel like I got the following day's aches and fatigues mostly from that track alone lmao... I'm barely a mosher at all, to be fair, I've tried and I'm already wayyyy past that. I've been seeing myself very visibly in Kaonashi's Instagram stories and all and I am clearly too autistic to externalize my enthusiasm and excitement despite singing along in places and all... but yeah, less so on that song. I'm especially glad that some pre-Lemon House stuff has grown on me as well beforehand, specifically 'Our Troubled Selves' and 'You'll Understand When You're Older', the latter is easily the second biggest highlight for me as it was an unplanned encore and all. The audience being as into it as they were was definitely a significant part of what made it such a great vibe for me, a level of collective excitement that I honestly struggle to compare with previous live experiences of mine, particularly with shows as small and intimate as this. The closest thing I can think of right now is seeing Every Time I Die at the Borderline.

As with the night before reportedly, 'Run Away Jay' was on the printed setlist but crossed out in favour of 'Blood Red Camry Dance Party'. They also crossed out 'Exit', and legit forgot to play 'Real Leather', or at least Peter Rono put on his Instagram that he / the band forgot to play it, LOL. While the breadth of Kaonashi's discography as it is already is such that I'd expect to be hard to satisfy with only having even just an hour's worth of a selection of songs for them to play, the way things ended up being, it was one hell of a good show regardless of what they ended up playing. I'm still very picky about what Kaonashi songs I'd choose to listen to in my spare time, certainly so for anything before the O' Ear single / Dear Lemon House, but I'd very likely consider seeing them again with Leo if I already knew they'd be playing at least a song or two I really like of theirs... hell, I'd chance it even if I had no clue what they'd end up playing tbh. Big shoutouts to Peter Rono, always!

Back on that dream setlist shit, which no one asked for!... I did wonder about making two seperate dream setlists for hypothetical scenarios where they'd have either a 30 min set or an hour long set, although I am more inclined to... 45 mins worth of their stuff minimum here...

This time I'm not gonna try to order them myself and pay attention to track placement, setlist flow and all that. I'm just gonna list the tracks I'd wanna see live in order of release / their positions on each album's track listing, and that includes tracks I've seen here and would really wanna see them play again.

Honourable mentions to 'Our Troubled Selves', and 'Humiliation Ritual' because why not, especially since I put every other track from The 3 Faces of Beauty anyway. Hell, even 'Confusion in a Car Crash / Fairmount Park After Dark', despite that I personally enjoy 'Red Sink, Yellow Teeth' and 'Slower Forms of Suicide' more on record. I wanna ask Leo about what their dream setlist would look like as well, or at least some approximation of it like I did here, so I'll get back to y'all on that here.

Among the things Leo said they'd likely put in their "dream setlist" is: the whole of The 3 Faces of Beauty EP, Ex-Prayers, my picks from Dear Lemon House (swapping Market Street with Exit Part IV, or maybe The Counselor's Office), same two tracks from the first album (as well as Real Leather), O' Ear, Fly on the Wall, and Elephant in the Room.

Very fun!/10

#kaonashi #nailbreaker #seen live