Bring Me The Horizon Obliterate Nashville
Sheffield’s Grammy nominated metalcore band, Bring Me The Horizon have their sights set on their very first US arena headline tour and they’re bringing all their friends! Ever since stepping on the scene in 2004, Oliver Sykes, Matt Kean, Jordan Fish, Lee Malia, and Matt Nicolls have been taking what we think we know about the band and continuously reinventing themselves in a way that only Bring Me The Horizon can.
Having said that, one thing remains to be seen. A United States arena tour. That is, until now. Bring Me The Horizon have been cultivating and contemplating the right moves and calculating all the risks to bring a monumental tour to all of us here in the States. Enlisting the help of three talented artists; Siiickbrain, Grandson and Knocked Loose. All four bands with something to say under one giant arena roof have the makings of a successful and mind melting show.
The city of Nashville is the destination, with our ears being the targets of BMTH’s Post Human Tour. Eager fans have waited long and patiently for this day to come and on 9-28-22, it finally came. Fans were lined all the way around Metro Nashville Municipal Auditorium as far as the eye could see. Smiling faces, street vendors blasting BMTH music and playing air guitar to the corner of John Lewis Way and bringing as much attention to lower Nashville’s oldest arena.
Watching the seats and floor fill up as the hour got closer for the opening band was quite the spectacle in and of itself. Soon, Siiickbrain would take to the stage and blow the roof off of the place with her genre-bending style of music. Getting to know the person behind the idea, Caroline Miner aka Siiickbrain, is not the average artist, and would soon show us all that is absolutely fine with us. Coming to us from North Carolina, Siiickbrain had something to say right out of the gate and it was evident she wasn’t slowing down. This was absolutely a statement of a performance, one that I soon won’t forget as she thanked the night’s headline act, BMTH for taking a chance on her.
As the night progressed, I would talk to several fans on the rails who were very excited for the night’s next artist, grandson. An artist I wasn’t familiar with at all, but once his set would end, I’d make sure to correct that. An artist with a lot to say, grandson came out packing a heavy punch that was completely unexpected but most definitely welcomed. Speaking on current issues in our world and tackling them head-on with no apologies is what you get with grandson. Unapologetically to the point and singing from the deepest depths of his own life with life experiences he’s seen from a world that at times doesn’t know which way is up. This is an artist who is steadily climbing his way to the top of whatever mountain he wants to stand on, as long as there are those who are willing to receive the message of his lyrics.
All the way from my home state of Kentucky, Knocked Loose was next up to get the crowd primed and ready for Bring Me The Horizon! That’s right, Louisville’s very own would be direct support for the Post Human Tour 2022 and when I tell you that they blew the place wide open, I mean it. Knocked Loose came on the stage and instantly set the stage on fire with a gruesomely powerful performance that had so much tenacity as well as all the proper elements to get such fans ready for it’s main act. The way Bryan Garris and company played their set was definitely on point to any recording you’ve ever heard from their studio albums, if not better. The band was pitch perfect and had me just as focused on head banging in the pit as I was taking their photos. There was something for everyone in Knocked Loose’s set, as they played up all the current favorites leading up to “Counting Worms” which, anyone who knows anything about Knocked Loose, knows this is the “arf arf” song and let’s be honest, we all bark at that part. The band played like 10+ year veterans with such a massive stage presence that most who are 10 years in still have to work at. This was definitely one of my favorite bands to catch and work with in 2022.
At long last, Bring Me The Horizon was on deck and ready to shatter any and all expectations for their show. Even as I write this piece now, looking back, I still wasn’t ready for what unfolded in front of my camera. Like the well-oiled machine they now are, the bands stage was set and we were introduced to the artificial intelligence assistant to the band who would scan the crowd and find out that we all were indeed infected and in need of a BMTH show. The countdown began and soon would reach its end. As members of the band came to the stage, “Can You Feel My Heart” began to play and everyone collectively lost their minds (myself included).
Oli Sykes, Matt Kean, Lee Malia, Matt Nicholls, Jordan Fish all respectively hitting every single note and maintaining the same intensity if not matching it from start to finish, would make for one of the most entertaining and memorable performances of the year for me. “Scream for me” exclaimed Sykes, and without an ounce of hesitation, Nashville screamed in unison. BMTH made its way from many different eras of the band’s discography in such seamless fashion, you knew this tour had been planned with surgical precision!
Let’s talk about that stage for a second! LED wall to wall, everywhere you looked. Insanely detailed and interactive lights perfectly in synchronicity to the bands set list. Oliver Sykes would jump to the middle platform numerous times to show everyone just how together this band still very much is and jump right back into it, edging the front lip of the stage and giving everyone that live performance that every single fan paid for and then some.
Thanking the Nashville faithful crowd, Sykes had this to say, “after 20 years of being a band you have continued to humble us and make us all a family, and it is this family that you all are a part of and we love you all so fucking much, and we are so thankful to each and every one of you”. When I tell you it shows these guys love what they do, I mean it. I haven’t had this much fun watching a band perform in a while as it really translates well that these guys genuinely love being in this band together!
Bring Me The Horizon, still very much in touch with their metalcore roots, with shades of it woven in and out of current songs that have a more current or updated sound that some consider to be “mainstream” BMTH is very much still metalcore at the very heart of their souls. Sykes has still got that demon in his voice and is very capable of channeling it when prompted. The band would come back for a three-song encore which would include fan favorites “Obey”, an acoustic version of “Follow You” and rounding out the night with “Throne”.
Bring Me The Horizon brought their all from their friends in Siiickbrain, grandson and Knocked Loose as tour mates, to their own larger than life live performance at the Metro Nashville Municipal Auditorium, this is one tour you do not want to sleep on.
