Continuing our streak of Saturday night concerts, Ro and I spent this past Saturday at the Sound Academy for Bring Me The Horizon’s “American Dream” Tour with Of Mice & Men.
BMTH: Matt Nicholls, Matt Kean, Oli, Lee, Jordan.
OM&M: Aaron, Alan, Austin, Tino, Phil
I wrote about BMTH for Music Monday a couple of months ago, about how they’re the most metal band I listen to, etc. We saw their set at Warped last summer and it was good, but I was really looking forward to seeing them in a club space so that I could ACTUALLY SEE the stage, as opposed to standing behind a tent (like at Warped).
The opening bands were Northlane (they’re Australian; we only caught the last 2 songs because the Sound Academy constantly opens doors late and/or takes forever to let people in) and Issues. I haven’t really heard Issues apart from their spectacular cover of “Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays”, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. They were okay…they had an It’s Classy, Not Classic-era Breathe Carolina vibe (much as I love BC, Classy has never been my favourite of their albums)…I’m not sure how I felt about them. I’ll probably give them another listen – they might sound better recorded?
I constantly try to get into Of Mice & Men, but I can’t listen to their self-titled album (from 2010) all in one shot. I haven’t really given 2011’s The Flood a full listen either, but from what I heard of their most recent effort (Restoring Force came out at the end of January), they are a band that I’ll probably (eventually) like. They were energetic, and Austin Carlisle was a good frontman, though he kept saying “Toronto, Canada!” and we were like “yeah, thanks dude, I know where I am”. Otherwise, they had great stage presence and the crowd loved them. We were pretty far back (on purpose), but I imagine that when he called for a wall of death, it was intense.
Would you still be there?
Finally BMTH came out to “Can You Feel My Heart” (one of my faves) and there was an explosion of silver confetti. Again, not sure how the crowd reacted, but even halfway across the venue, there was a lot of screaming/singing (including me).
I’m scared to get close, I hate being alone, I long for that feeling to not feel at all.
One great thing about them, though, is that they (and by “they”, I mean “Oli”) don’t really talk during the set. There are some bands – All Time Low, for example – where the onstage banter is part of the show and fans know what they’re in for. BMTH, on the other hand, do the normal greeting (“TORONTO, HOW THE FCK ARE YOU?!”) and – as all metal bands do – there was a lot of encouragement to “go mental” i.e. circle pit like you mean it. The lack of talking meant there was a lot more music played with almost no breaks.
The set consisted of a lot of songs from 2013’s Sempiternal, and I was perfectly fine with this as that is my preferred BMTH album. They played the majority of the album, but their set seemed short – only 10-12 songs. I can’t tell you which of their older songs they played because I’m honestly not that familiar with the first 2 albums, and I can only recognize select songs from the third one.
THIS. IS. SEMPITERNAL.
I also liked that at one point, in the first or second song, Oli asked the crowd to put down their phones/cameras/etc and just “live in the moment”. Of course, a lot of people were still waving their screens in the air, but for the most part, the crowd went with it and just screamed the words back at him.
Like I said, it seemed short – we were home by midnight – and I’d have liked to hear some other songs (“Alligator Blood”, for instance, which was one of the first BMTH songs I really got into), but it was still a great show.
There are rumours they’ll be back at Warped this year, and I’ll definitely be in the crowd…well, not IN, so much as NEAR.
bellsiebooks 