Bring Me The Horizon @ UNSWRoundhouse, Sydney (1/3/11)

Wed 2nd Mar, 2011 in Gig Reviews

When deathcore royalty comes to town, you expect the local scene to react accordingly, and last night did not disappoint. Even though last I checked, the show was not sold out, the Roundhouse seemed like it was at full capacity. The queue for entry snaked around the beer garden (even at 7:45pm), and once inside, we were slightly overwhelmed by the toxic cocktail of alcohol and sweat from 1000 souls moshing.

Openers Asking Alexandria played enthusiastically, as the crowd jumped around the circle pits and punched and kicked the air around them. The band’s ripped jeans and glamorous hair gave off an air of pretence, but they banged their heads and chugged through their breakdowns appropriately.

Ten minutes in, it was hard to distinguish one song from the other save for the incongruous use of crunkcore elements such as drum machine samples and synth melodies here and there. Only with set closer The Final Episode (Let’s Change Channel) did the energy level in the crowd seem to match those onstage, with ‘Oh my God!’ being yelled in gang vocals throughout. This young band already has a following and it seems like they have the live show to deliver, even if it is a little generic overall.

Australian hardcore has come a long way in recent years. Rewind to the middle of the last decade, and bands like Parkway Drive, I Killed The Prom Queen and The Amity Affliction could have been spotted at your local youth centre or town hall at any given time of the year. Last year, The Amity Affliction’s CD Youngbloods came out to critical acclaim and extremely positive fan reactions, and the chance to see them billed higher than a seemingly popular UK band was an exciting opportunity for local fans.

As the techies and roadies set up the stage, the crowd cheered ‘Amity! Amity!’ and cheered loudly as the banners were revealed in all their pentagrammed glory. The anticipation was palpable. They opened with album opener I Hate Hartley and immediately the circle pits and crowdsurfing was underway. There’s something special about being at an Australian hardcore show with an Australian audience. Everything just seems to get kicked up a notch.

Their set drew heavily from Youngbloods, with only two oldies ( Stairway To Hell, and I Heart Roberts ) included in the set of seven, during which a little fan service was included, where former Prom Queen singer and now Bring Me The Horizon guitarist Jona Weinhofen assisted in vocals. By the third song, HMAS Lookback, frontman Joel Birch was already crowdsurfing. The duality of his and bassist *Ahren Stringer*’s clean singing worked naturally and did not seemed forced as can be common with so many of these kinds of bands.

During Fire Or Knife, hearing the crowd yell ‘There is no God who can hear you, just a sky full of stars’ in unison, you can’t help but get a few goosebumps. Youngbloods was danced to and sang along to like an angry, nihilistic anthem for the youth of today. Similarly, set closer Anchors seemed to unite everyone as a single voice, body, and mind facing a common, unnamed antagonist in the form of whatever middle-class, Australian, (mostly) Anglo kids face these days.

A brief intermission including Katy Perry remixes saw the Roundhouse become even more packed and sweaty. When Bring Me The Horizon finally came on the stage slightly after 9:30, all hell broke loose. It Never Ends, immediately dovetailed with Diamonds Aren’t Forever from Suicide Season was a killer one-two combo to open with, and punches and kicks were thrown in the crowd with reckless abandon.

Much has been said of frontman *Oli Sykes*’ vocal delivery through the years. Due to their notorious partying lifestyle, and unbridled screaming technique, one can almost track the deterioration of his voice through their back catalogue. However, last night’s live performance left no one doubting his ability as a frontman.

While the onstage antics were relatively tame, his vocals ranged from raspy yell, to guttural growling and higher-pitched gremlin screaming without any major problems. What probably helped Weinhofen sharing screaming (and singing) to good effect.

The banter with the crowd was minimal yet typically crude in an appealing kind of way. “Who here likes sexual intercourse?” he asked, before launching into Fuck from awkwardly titled There Is A Hell, Believe Me I’ve Seen It. There Is A Heaven, Let’s Keep It A Secret. It was in songs like this, where BMTH raise their heads above the sea of generic ‘-core’ bands around today.

As the clean-singing bridge for Fuck moved the crowd to sing as one, there was a rare and unexpected moment of beauty to be experienced. Similarly, inclusion of somewhat downbeat tracks Blessed With A Curse and Suicide Season in the set (the latter being the first in a two song encore) struck as odd choices.

There was an honest sense of desperation and anxiety in these performances that is rarely experienced at these kinds of concerts. Furthermore, eerie samples of vocals by Canadian singer-songwriter Lights on Crucify Me cut through the thick air and also brought a touch of beauty to proceedings.

Overall the set drew mainly from their two most recent albums. The crowd was chanting for Pray For Plagues from 2006’s Count Your Blessings early on in the set, and were duly gratified, but only when they served Oli a huge circle pit. The older BMTH sounds very different to their newer music, in a chaotic way, but the crowd involvement was no lower. In fact if anything, the older stuff gets the crowd even more psyched. Other highlights in the set included a gigantic wall of death during Anthem and Oli getting everyone to crouch down during set closer Chelsea Smile, to jump up in unison for the final breakdown, which was slightly awkward but fun nonetheless.

There is no doubt that BMTH are extremely popular in the scene. Their live show should do away with their detractors, as they perform almost note-perfect with a keen energy and honesty not seen in many other bands of the scene. There were a few points where they possibly struggled to keep up with some of the sampled beats and tracks, but these were scarce and probably not noticeable to the average kid fighting off his invisible demons in the circle pit.

BMTH’s musical evolution through the years has brought them to a very interesting place today. Moments of quietness and even pensiveness can be found throughout their latest release. When experienced live it elevates their show to something much more than just another hardcore show where you can enjoy circle pits and walls of death.

However, this is not to say that a BMTH concert is an overwhelmingly spiritual experience. My friends came out with a chipped tooth and the other saying there was blood everywhere on the floor. He had to wring his shirt dry and it was running with sweat. So even if you’re there just for a good ol’ hardcore dancing session or to ‘party til you pass out, drink til you’re dead, dance all night til you can’t feel your legs’, you can get that too and you surely won’t be disappointed.