Bring Me The Horizon turn Place Bell into a dance party.

Since Bring Me The Horizon’s latest album ‘amo’ was released only little over a week ago, there have been a variety of mixed emotions and reviews circulating around the record with people being unhappy with the new, significantly poppier sound, and all the negative feedback has eventually forced the front man Oli Sykes to publicly address the comments.

It is evident from his interviews I have seen within the past week or so, that he felt the need to let go of the past for his own, and his new love’s sake, hence ‘amo’ was born.

The band’s style has slowly evolved over the years to more radio friendly material, yet the latest album is significantly lighter from all of its predecessors. The new album is currently already topping the charts in the UK and Australia.

Bring Me The Horizon at Place Bell. Photo by Laura Collins.

For anyone having any doubts about the show being heavy enough beforehand, they were quickly wiped away as Sykes walked through the stage, and stood alone on the catwalk in front of his audience, with only one spotlight pointed at his slender figure, before the rest of the band joining him on stage for their latest hit single ‘Mantra’.

Sykes kept the crowd engaged all throughout the show, performing songs consistently from several albums, and the audience only slowing down for a couple of the songs from the newest album, for the band to break into one of their older hits only for the people to go wild again.

Bring Me The Horizon perform at Place Bell – photo by Laura Collins Photography

Worth mentioning is the band’s deathcore medley, which got the mosh pit going absolutely nuts, before Sykes prompting the audience to sit on the floor as he built the momentum for the band’s last song of the night, the mega hit ‘Throne’, which eventually turned the whole arena into a one sweaty dance party.

The true fans have clearly not given up on the band regardless of the new sound, and looks like the only way for Bring Me The Horizon from here on, is up.

Several audience members had arrived mainly for the night’s second opener, California rockers Thrice, who just celebrated their twentieth anniversary last year. Performing between two spectacles didn’t do justice to the band’s toned down performance, which I would have preferably seen as a headliner show at another time.

Thrice performing at Place Bell in Laval. Photo by Laura Collins.

The real showstopper of the night was the Los Angeles supergroup Fever333. The band consisting of former Letlive vocalist Jason Aalon Butler, former The Chariot guitarist Stephen Harrison, and Night Verses drummer Aric Improta, have not been together for even two years and have already been causing a good kind of ruckus on the venues across North America.

Having seen some intense live video from an intimate show at a dive bar with a fifty head audience, I was curious to see how the band’s presence would take on an arena of thousands of people.

The band had a grip on their audience from the first moment they stepped on stage. Butler, running through the pit all the way to the stands to rock out with the audience, and eventually just sitting down to chat up the crowd, before heading back on stage with his band mates and giving their all throughout the whole, insanely energetic half an hour performance.

When the band was done, I am pretty sure everyone at the arena we’re wondering what the f* just hit them. Can’t wait to see more of this band, who have also just been nominated for a Grammy for the Best Rock Performance with their single “Made an America”. Maybe there is still hope in this world for us lovers of heavier music!

Bring Me The Horizon Setlist:

1. I Apologize If You Feel Something

2. Mantra

3. The House of Wolves

4. Avalanche

5. Sleepwalking

6. Wonderful Life

7. The Best Is Yet To Come (Aoife Ni Fhearraigh cover)

8. Shadow Moses

9. Nihilist Blues

10. Happy Song

11. Follow You