Up on the wall, the front page of a Sheffield newspaper is stapled in place. A pack of young men are pictured, faces shrouded behind an array of MySpace-worthy fringes as they brandish a trophy before them. “Local Lad Bags Award!” the excitable Look Local headline reads, before congratulating a 19-year-old Oli Sykes and the rest of his band on being crowned Best British Newcomer.
At the time, Bring Me The Horizon were two months shy of releasing their debut album, ‘Count Your Blessings’. In fact, the article explains that the gaggle had taken a day off from the studio, temporarily pausing final production stages just to attend the award show. Nearby, alongside the makeshift gallery’s various magazine clippings and archival photographs, the award even sits in a glass box – a relic of Bring Me The Horizon’s first taste of success.
In the two decades since, plenty has changed. Gone are the days of rowdy, mop-headed lads trying to mix bathroom-recorded guttural vocals on broken studio speakers. Bring Me The Horizon are one of metal’s biggest success stories. With their gateway cocktail of alt-metal, ambient electronics and arena-pop-rock, the band has transcended beyond the deathcore underground and directly into the mainstream leagues of Top 10 album charts and elaborate, high-production festival headline sets.
But that doesn’t mean the lads have forgotten where they came from. Just as this gallery takes fans down memory lane, today’s festivities aim to celebrate the album that truly started it all. Working with the legendary Outbreak Fest, Bring Me The Horizon will treat fans to a chaotic, no-barrier romp to mark the 20th Anniversary of ‘Count Your Blessings’. And based on the number of people packed into the B.E.C. Arena, those gathered are more than ready for an evening of the raw and unruly.
Of course, Bring Me have brought along plenty of acts to rile up the masses – including an old flame in the form of ex-guitarist, Curtis Ward. As his old bandmates in Bring Me The Horizon watch from the balcony, Ward’s new band, Still In Love, kick off the day in a healthy flurry of two-stepping and stage divers. Whilst outside, Showing Teeth are raring to go, promising to “Bring the Nashville hot”. And for her debut performance on British shores, frontwoman Addison certainly delivers a fiery performance. Then it’s back inside in quick time, as LA exports Car Underwater are also making their first acquaintance with the UK, with punters happy to get a little sweaty in honour of the band’s nostalgic brand of screamo.
It’s not long before Dying Wish are then upping the ante out on the main stage. Despite the name of opener ‘I Don’t Belong Anywhere’, the incendiary punch proves that this metalcore unit belongs right here, with Emma Boster’s gut-turning howls of “Fuck you”, punctuated by a mile-wide grin and whimsical high-kick, more than enough to rile up the crowds, with fans barrelling into moshpits, clambering onstage, and even front-flipping into their stage dives. And Boster isn’t afraid to share her excitement over the significance of today, either. “We were weird kids on MySpace,” she proclaims at one point. “When I was 13 years old, I came across an album that changed my life… and that was ‘Count Your Blessings’ by Bring Me The Horizon.”
Inside, the blackened metalcore flavour of HERIOT also wears its ‘Count Your Blessings’ love on its sleeve, with guitarist and vocalist Debbie Gough having previously noted Bring Me’s debut having an influence on the band’s sound. Then we’re back outside again, as Static Dress show off their influence from tonight’s headliner in the energy they exude. The manner in which Olli Appleyard charges onstage with his caustic blend of Yorkshire-spiced excitement and goading of the crowd to move feels right out of the Sykes handbook. Before, finally, Rolo Tomassi, who supported BMTH for one of their first shows way back in 2005, serve up a beautiful blend of ambient prog magic, wistful lullaby vocals and cut-throat screamo nightmares.
Before today’s grand headliners finally take to the stage, they’re keen to prepare fans for the carnage that is to come. Bring Me’s winged mascot, M8, gives a guide on hardcore dancing, from explaining that The Windmill is achieved by “pretending your arms have received terrible news“, to likening a Wall Of Death to “school sports day if it was organised by Stalin.”
Though, there’s really no need for the FAQ. This is a crowd primed to mosh to the band’s debut in all its gory glory. And, by the time the iconic ‘Pray For Plagues’, rumbles out, and this mass of bodies howls back those immortal words, you can see the band realise that performing this record here was an absolutely perfect idea.
And Oli isn’t going to stand around and be a bystander; by the time ‘Tell Slater Not To Wash His Dick’ kicks in, he’s down at the front of the stage, the eye of the storm as fans barrel around him onstage, ducking and diving on and off the platform in a flurry. Throughout, he sounds fucking incredible; all the vocal training he’s been doing in prep for the ‘Count Your Blessings: Repented’ re-release has paid off, from horrifying gravelly lows to goblin high false cords.
While he’s grown accustomed to the grandiosity of bombastic arena tours, this seems to itch a carnal hunger that no arena stage can quite scratch. Sykes is more than happy to accept the crowd’s approval in the form of getting grabbed and whacked by windmilling arms. “Thank you so much… we did not think this album being re-released 20 years later was going to really do anything,” he admits at one point. “To be honest, we thought this would be a bit of a side note this year… but the reaction we’ve got has fucking blown our minds.
“And we know it’s not because of us – it’s because of the scene,” he adds. “That fucking feeling we got 20 years ago. We’ve not come close to it since. So thank you for being a part of this with us tonight.”
It’s a heartfelt moment that really puts tonight in perspective. 20 years ago, ‘Count Your Blessings’ had its diehard deathcore supporters… but not everyone was so kind. Now, 8,000 people are gathered at a sold-out festival, and everyone is fully committed to the chaos of a sound Bring Me haven’t touched in years. It’s a real pinch-yourself moment, and Sykes can’t stop smiling as he grabs fans by the face throughout ‘(I Used to Make Out With) Medusa’, happily getting swallowed up in a sea of stage invaders as guitarist Lee Malia chomps his way through those old-school, ridiculously melodramatic riffs.
By the time ‘Count Your Blessings’ is wrapped up, there’s still more to come. As well as a live debut for ‘DEHUMANIZED’, there are plenty of deep cuts being served up, the excitement of wheeling them out as evident on stage as in the crowd. ‘Re: They Have No Reflections’ sees Sykes launching himself headfirst into the crowd, whilst a rare showing of ‘Blessed With A Curse’ slows everything down but the intensity. By the time that ‘Diamonds Aren’t Forever’s generation-defining calls of “We will never sleep cause sleep is for the weak” ring out, Oli seems like he doesn’t want to leave. When your sound has evolved in the way theirs has, it’s natural that the crowds will change too. It’s as if he hadn’t anticipated just how that vast audience would rise to such a devastating occasion.
‘Count Your Blessings’ has never felt more special than it does right now, twenty years after it first released. And, to be honest, it feels like Bring Me The Horizon can’t quite believe it.
Only time will tell if they decide to make something of this feeling, because the fans are clearly in support of them reigniting their deathcore might in future.
