To capture a moment in time is to make it live forever. Now, it’s one thing to just document it, share it with whoever wishes to be part of it, and let it reside in whatever form it wishes. It’s another to take it to the next level, make it not just something that means the world to those in direct contact, but for those in every single circle you inhabit.
To represent something even bigger.
For Bring Me The Horizon, they could have easily just filmed their biggest ever headline show at São Paulo’s Allianz Parque, taking place in front of 50,000 people back in 2024 at one of their Post Human: Next Gen shows, and that would have been the end of it. But that’s how the band do things. You don’t get to where they are by playing it safe.
Instead, they have taken the footage from this special occasion and turned it into a real event. Not just in the manner in which it is presented, thanks to the creative direction of vocalist Oli Sykes injecting it with some of the serum that has made the ‘NeX Gen’ era such a fantastically fascinating world to be in. But also in the fact that they have taken it to the big screen, showing in over 200 cinemas worldwide for two days only.
It’s this sort of ambition that has allowed them to stay at the very top for as long as they have. And it’s the sort of ambition that transforms this from simply being a document of a live show into a masterclass in harnessing euphoria.
To start, the performance itself is absolutely spectacular. From the opening triple-headed gambit of ‘DArkSide’, ‘MANTRA’ and ‘Happy Song’, met with pyro, fireworks and some of the loudest singalongs you’re ever likely to experience, to the lasers that are paired with a guttural ‘Kingslayer’ and savage ‘Parasite Eve’, the attention to detail and desire to create a hostile and hedonistic atmosphere within this gigantic stadium is second to none.
That’s even more evident when accompanied by the fully realised and brilliantly compelling components of the ‘NeX Gen’ universe of which the band spent so much of 2024 building. From the reveal of Project Angel Dust breaking through the beautiful church windows that make up the backdrop of the stage during ‘Kool-Aid’, to the ritual that takes place in hopes of breaking through to YouTopia below these Brazilian streets, it’s impossible not to get roped up in the drama and decadence of it all, despite watching it from comfort instead the centre of the band’s vision of a hellscape.
Though as much as the big bold moves take up most space, it’s in the little details of the actual film where the scale of what the band have achieved truly sinks in. Every camera used offers a different perspective on the performance, from the tiny ones that centre on every band member’s beaming face to the ones that brave the mayhem of the pit to capture every spinkick, headbang, and throat-shredding refrain. It makes everything feel incredibly intimate, even though it is not. Every single person in the stadium has their own part to play in this and be it the footage submitted by fans in the upper echelons, or the footage of the fellas dressed as bananas dominating the pit (‘The Fruit Has Entered The Fray’ being one of the funniest SYSTEM NOTEs displayed in the corner of such a clip), every experience is as vital as the last. This is a family affair, and the band want that to be front and centre.
What stands out most in this vast amount of footage, though, is just how many tears are being shed. Whenever the camera pans to the crowd, it focuses on someone whose emotional response to all of this fire and fury has reached such a fever pitch that all they can do is sob. Sometimes, it’s just a reaction to the band simply being in front of them, an understandable stance to have considering how much work goes into bands planning a trip to Brazil, let alone pulling off a show of this magnitude. Sometimes the waterworks are in motion because of the song being played; the vulnerability of Oli’s lyrics just hitting home that little bit too sweetly, so the only thing to do is allow them to engulf. But more than at any other time, the tears flow because what else is there to do at a moment like this? From a hedonistic ‘Shadow Moses’, where bright red flares are held aloft in the middle of every pit from front to back, to a heartwrenching ‘Drown’, an icy-cold ‘Doomed’, to a raw ‘Sleepwalking’, it’s an unrelenting spectacle, to say the least. An hour and a half of anthems that are healing as many souls as they are setting aflame. You’d be fighting back the tears, too, if you were there.
It all equates to an experience that leaves you as utterly breathless as it does immensely proud. For a band that cut their teeth playing in every pub and club in South Yorkshire that would have them to now being able to deliver a show of this magnitude, 6000 miles away from Sheffield, is quite simply exceptional. For their music, inspired by a very particular lifestyle and culture, to have struck such a chord this deep so far away from home is something that doesn’t happen by chance, and to live up to such an asking when so many now depend on you for support and solace is even more of a challenge. Yet they make it look like it’s second nature.
It’s why they remain the benchmark. The influence. The once in a generation. There is nobody else doing it quite like them, and that has pretty much been the case for two decades now.
Whatever the future may hold remains a mystery, but no matter what, that one night in São Paulo will always be a moment when Bring Me The Horizon felt truly unstoppable.
Bring Me The Horizon’s ‘L.I.V.E. In São Paulo (Live Immersive Visual Experiment)’ will be in cinemas worldwide for two days only, March 25 and March 28. Participating cinemas and tickets are available now from www.bmth.live
