Source: Promo Image
Now, before we start, I’d just like to point out, I am well aware of who Bring Me The Horizon are. In my youthful days, I grew up listening to the likes of Underoath, Alexisonfire, 36 Crazy Fists (you get the idea) so I am in no way uneducated in the ways of heavy, screamy rock. Nowadays though, you’re much more likely to find me listening to the likes of Taylor Swift and Ben Howard (this is what happens when you reach your mid-20’s, kids).
In the past five days, I have seen BMTH twice – I had no intention of seeing them even once but when the lovely rock/metal editor offered me the choice of coming to see them play on Thursday in a relatively small venue in my home city or sitting in a room at the University of Reading halls on my own all evening, it was a bit of a no brainer.
Bursting onto the stage to a mass of screams and hysteria from the crowd, Oli Sykes and crew opened up their set with ‘Happy Song‘ (ironic, as despite the cheerleader style chanting throughout, this track seemed anything but happy to me, but I guess that’s maybe the point?) The crowd went mental as you would expect and, in all honesty, I didn’t find this introduction as intimidating as I thought I would… then came the aggression.
Between tracks, the crowd were instructed to create the biggest pit Oxford has probably ever seen. “Are you fucking deaf?!”, Sykes screams at the obeying audience. After delighting in seeing the venue’s patrons colliding into each other with force combined with a whole load of effing and jeffing as well as the occasional dropped C-bomb, the set concluded with performances of ‘Throne‘ and ‘Shadow Moses‘ (which I proudly recognized as the Sandpit Turtle song – hardcore points to me!) before closing with the epic ‘Drown‘.
I can’t say that this gig has turned me into a hardcore fan but it has helped to understand the appeal of the band and why everyone seems to get crazy over the Sheffield boys – they certainly are headline material! Well, I wouldn’t have bothered seeing their set at Reading Festival over the weekend if they hadn’t made some sort of impression, now would I?
