A review of Bring Me the Horizon and support at The Ironworks, Inverness on the 1st of May, 2013.
It was already mobbed by the time I arrived at the Ironworks and I was in time to catch the last half of Empress, the first support act of the night. The prog metallers made an agreeable racket and their latest single ‘Deeper in Disguise’ has already been featured on the Radio One rock show. They went down well, with circle pits forming early on and the odd stray shoe flying through the air.
Crossfaith were next on and got a reception that many headline acts would be jealous of. The Japanese metalcore outfit fuse a combination of ferocious riffs and electronica and they quickly had the Ironworks in the palm of their hands. Every request to ‘let’s fucking move’ was met with an enthusiastic response and a further request to crowd surf en masse was likely viewed with some consternation from the security staff! It’s not often you see such a huge reaction for a support act and demands for ‘one more song’ rang out as they left the stage. It did leave me wondering how Bring Me The Horizon would begin to match that level of enthusiasm.
I shouldn’t have worried though, Oli Sykes and Co bounded on to stage and the sell out Ironworks crowd erupted as they kicked off with ‘Shadow Moses’. Every word of the first few songs were sang back at the band with Sykes proclaiming that this was already the best night on the tour, even though this is only the third date!
This tour is in support of their latest album Sempiternal, it’s a slightly more mature offering compared to their previous two albums, with Oli Sykes saying that he’d used influences as diverse as Explosions in The Sky and ambient music to put the album together. For the casual listener it’s not as heavyweight as their last album ‘There is Hell is Believe me I’ve seen it…‘ and as a whole it’s probably one of their more accessible records.
I suspect Bring Me the Horizon could easily have sold out a venue twice the size of the Ironworks and it’s heartening to know that bands with their sizeable profile see the Highlands as a worthwhile place to visit. Even if Sykes did initially shout ‘ Come on Scotland’ to get the crowd going before saying he wasn’t sure where he was!
A brutal pace is set from start to finish. Forthcoming single ‘Go To Hell, For Heaven’s sake’ is dedicated to any ‘dickheads you might know’ and features one of the biggest circle pits of the night. A whirling maelstrom of sweaty bodies threatens to drag everyone in whether you want to join or not. This is closely followed by a ‘wall of death’, orchestrated by the band, it involves everyone moving to the side and creating a large space in the middle of the floor, usually done during a quiet bit of a song. As it builds to a crescendo the possibly suicidal punters surge into the space in the middle creating a clash of bodies akin to a battle scene from the Lord of The Rings… albeit an army made up of insular, skinny teens with floppy hair.
Other songs to feature from the new album included, ‘The House of Wolves’ and ‘Empire (Let them sing)’ and for a record that has only just been out for a month it was impressive how well the fans new the songs and were able to sing along with them in their entirety.
Oli Sykes growls, screams and cajoles his way through the set and possibly gave the Ironworks Security staff further conniptions during ‘The House of Wolves’ by declaring that anyone who didn’t attempt to invade the stage would be considered a ‘knobhead’. Aside from a few bodies crowd surfing, the stage was left free of any over enthusiastic fans.
BMTH’s angsty metalcore is perfectly suited to an audience that was predominantly in the teens to early twenties age bracket. There were plenty of angry lyrics and raised middle fingers with the final song ‘Antivist’ consummately summing up the attitude for the night:
‘You can say I’m just a fool that stands for nothing, I say you’re a c*nt!”
Set list:
Shadow Moses
Chelsea Smile
Alligator Blood
Go To Hell, For Heaven’s sake
House of Wolves
It Never Ends
And the Snakes Start to Sing
Diamonds
Blessed
Sleepwalking
Empire (let them sing)
Antivist
You can see more photos of Bring Me The Horizon, and of course sign up to the Inverness Gigs mailing list.
