SiriusXM Presents: Bring Me the Horizon

A LocalBozo.com Concert Review
Webster Hall, New York, NY
September 15, 2015

A tightly packed and vocal audience jammed their way into The Studio at Webster Hall on Tuesday night for another of satellite radio giant SiriusXM’s live streaming shows in the New York area. On this night, the outlet’s Octane channel would welcome British metal outfit Bring Me the Horizon to the intimacy of The Studio’s stage, where roughly 400 of the band’s most passionate fans would leave dozens more waiting outside during the band’s energetic eleven song set. They wouldn’t be left entirely in the cold though as the band would spend time at a post show meet and green for all of the fans that weren’t as fortunate to have made their way inside.

Following a brief introduction by Octane DJ Grant Random, frontmant Oliver Sykes would lead his bandmates out to center stage- his tattooed arm sleeves blending in comfortably with his camouflaged Jurassic Park shirt. Instantly, the band launched into a new track- “Happy Place,” a bouncy and catchy opener from the band’s recently released fifth studio album “That’s the Spirit” (September 11th) whose lyrics literally encourage audience participation. It didn’t take much longer after that for fans to follow suit by singing along accordingly to the likes of “Shadow Moses” and “Sleepwalking,” with crowdsurfing being welcomed at seemingly every song in between.

Though the show was a celebration/album release party of sorts, this was but a tease for New York City fans as Bring Me the Horizon have already sold out the far larger Terminal 5 with a return date slated for October 5th- hardly a surprise considering the way the band owned the room on this night. Sykes’ defiant style and screaming vocals serve to prod on an already aggressive crowd- in a good way. The energy level inside the club was feverish and entirely good-natured, as a rock show is meant to be.

New tracks paced much of the evening’s set from recently released single “Throne” to encore cuts “True Friends” and “Drown,” the video for which was released nearly a year prior to their latest album. The relatively abbreviated set did little to temper the enthusiasm inside the club space as the opening chords to each raucous tune were met with an audience abbreviation not entirely evident on the live streamed broadcast. It’s often the live crowd that can make or break a live performance- and Bring Me the Horizon certainly seemed to feed that sentiment all evening long. And in a token of their own appreciation, stuck around to take pictures with fans and friends lined up around the block for hours on a steamy September night in New York City.

- Jane Van Arsdale