Last night Bring Me The Horizon came home in spectacular fashion. Throughout the pandemic the Sheffield rock band promised they’d be doing things differently and they certainly did that at the sold-out Sheffield Arena.
Firstly, a bit of a moan and it’s nothing to do the band. Doors opened at 6pm, Nova Twins, the first of two support acts came on stage at 7pm, the Arena had published this in advance, they urged people to get down early as they’d be checking COVID-19 passports too so it might take a little longer to get in…
We weren’t fussed about Nova Twins but wanted to catch You Me At 6, on stage at 7:45pm, so we got there for 7:30pm, which should be fine. The only time I’ve had to queue to get into the Arena was for Ariana Grande (for obvious reasons) and that was 10 minutes. We got There to find queues for each entrance going around the block, it was madness, at least half an hour! I know they said to get down early but doors had been open an hour and a half at this point.
We presumed it was because they were being thorough with the checks, nope. No COVID passport checks, they barely looked in bags, it just didn’t make sense. The queue for merch was equally ridiculous (however that seemed to be the lack of 4G for card payments, the Arena has always been bad for signal, I don’t understand how, in 2021 when we rely so much on our phones and data that this is still an issue…) and the bar queue was a joke, I gave up after half an hour, I’d already missed You Me At 6, didn’t want to miss the start of Bring Me too (card payments were fine, they just couldn’t pour fast enough, every venue needs the Tottenham stadium system where the beer goes up into the cup automatically).
I understand we’re still living in ‘unprecedented times’, that there’s staff shortages/new staff and this was the first gig back at the Arena but this is a huge show, tickets were £40+, they should have been prepared, it’s simply not good enough.
Anyway… Wow. The last time BMTH played Sheffield was an intimate acoustic set at Oli Sykes’ bar, Church: Temple of Fun, this was very different.
I love Arena shows, especially when production is top level and I’m hard to impress. I had expectations from when they played the Arena on the That’s the Spirit tour but this was something else.
The sound was LOUD and crisp as they rattled through opener Teardrops, dressed in matching suits like they were best men at a wedding. Streamers dropped from the ceiling as it kicked in and it didn’t take long for Oli’s thick Sheffield accent to demand a massive circle pit “Rate then Sheff, it’s been 18 months since I seen a fuckin’ pit, so let’s see a fuckin’ mosh pit” and a pit happened, pure joy and chaos met for the first of many times throughout the set.
For 90 minutes and 18 songs the Sheffield 5-piece (flanked by 2 dancers) roared through material from last years POST HUMAN: SURVIVAL HORROR, 2019’s amo, That’s the Spirit from 2015 as well as a few from the album that took them from metal heavyweights to the mainstream, Sempiternal in 2013 and their latest, most accessible song to date, DiE4u.
It was a strong mix of heavy guitar riffs, thunderous drums and shouty vocals to melodic verses and sing-a-long chorus, the hometown crowd was in fine voice too. It was great to see the POST HUMAN SURVIVAL HORROR songs come to life having been released during lockdown. Those songs were made for big stages and Nova Twins joined BMTH for 1x1. There was even time to get the acoustic guitar out for the anthemic Follow You, where to crowd were encouraged to get on each others shoulders.
As production goes, the band really hit the mark using lights and screens in a way I’ve never seen before. The stage was transformed several times, you didn’t want to look away in case you missed something. The setlist, perfect, the band, flawless and Oli is one of the best frontmen going, energetic, powerful and good bant, I didn’t want this one to end.
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