Young upstart Amira Elfeky was first on our bill. She’s gained a lot of traction in a short time and getting a spot on this monster tour at 23, two years into the biz is an accomplishment. While she has the talent to earn it, I think she has a lot to learn about occupying a stage that large and reaching a crowd that big. Start by bringing your band out of the shadows to help you fill the space. With her talent, I’m sure she’ll be a force for years to come though.
Next up were veterans The Plot In You. These guys have served on so many big tours and there’s a reason for it: they always deliver. They can shake a crowd and get the blood flowing with their high-energy performance. I’ve also got to give props to our headliners, whom you can tell paid their dues before they reached this level and gave a band going on at 6:45 free rein of the stage.
I’ve seen headliners not get the reaction Motionless In White did at the Bell Centre. Walking out to “Meltdown,” they got the crowd going. Singer Chris Motionless looked like a ghoul guarding the temple doors to a crypt that reanimated the dead, but he commands the stage and crowd. They are poised to be the next big arena band themselves. The crowd screamed every word to “Another Life” like it’s the metalcore Wonderwall.
The prelude to the main event featured videos of 32-bit Resident Evil reskinned as Post Human. An android lady named Eve appeared and told us she was scanning the crowd, observing human behaviour for her takeover of our puny planet.
As the curtain dropped, two priestesses in white carried Bring Me The Horizon banners on stage. The band ran out onto the cathedral stage with confetti and “Darkside” and “House of Wolves.”
For long-term fans, watching Oli evolve into an arena-commanding frontman is inspirational. Coming out the other end of some very public battles with substance abuse to emerge as a world-class performer is a transformation that would make any butterfly envious.
The priestesses shed their robes to become naughty cheerleading nuns for “Happy Song.” Oli then proved he can still do his old-school gutturals on “Teardrops” and “aMeN!”
While the band’s performance has evolved, the production has gone through the roof. I don’t say this lightly, but they’ve passed Tool for most mind-bending visuals. They’re expanding what a live show can look like. From turning band members into demons or pixelated matrix creatures in real time on the side screens to turning crowd members into zombies, it looked light years beyond anything I’ve ever seen. Eve was showing up and interacting with crowd members on video in real time.
During the first of many little interludes, when Eve popped out of the side screens and moved to the big screen to bust the cathedral, I was shocked to see the cathedral was just on screen. It looked 3D and physical. The visuals when they turned the whole stage into an ice mountain were insane.
There was a video game the crowd could play via a QR code on screen that they brought up during “Antivist.” They brought out a crowd member to do backing vocals while her performance was flashed and tracked on screen like in a karaoke game.
The crowd absolutely lost their minds on “Kingslayer.” The pit, which had already gone into circle pit and wall of death mode, just simply went into apesh*t mode. They then calmed down, pulled out camera lights and put girlfriends on shoulders for a tender sing-along to “Follow You.” They screamed into a rain of heart-shaped confetti for “Can You Feel My Heart?”
During “Drown,” Oli went out into the crowd with a camera in selfie mode, leaning into people and singing with them. One girl seemed to have an out-of-body experience, while another just put her head on his shoulder, closed her eyes and seemed to hold back tears. It was far too adorable, despite the onscreen effects giving her devil horns.
The night ended with “Throne.” The confetti budget for the show, which was already extremely high, pretty much doubled. The nuns were back with black and white American flags that had a peace symbol instead of stars.
While people were filing out, the confetti cannons fired again onto a half-empty floor and Eve came back, telling us this was the last show we’d ever see as she activated the extermination protocol. Unfortunately for her, a captcha appeared and asked her to prove she wasn’t a robot by clicking on pictures of Oli. She kept failing by clicking on Wolowitz from Big Bang Theory, which drew an audible laugh.
The show then ended with a movie-style credits roll. And honestly, it was as long as a Hollywood movie.
In my 48 years, I’ve seen thousands of shows. This was a new level. I think years from now I’ll look back at this as a moment when live music levelled up. The torch has been passed from Pink Floyd to Kiss to Tool and now Bring Me The Horizon to set the standard for an arena stage show and push the medium further. This is just their first major arena tour, even if it took them two decades to get here. Scary to think.
Review – Richard Brunette
Photos – Matty Vogel
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