Bring Me The Horizon Fall 2011 US Headline Tour – REVIEW

Bring Me the Horizon came to the House of Blues in Chicago, on their Fall 2011 U.S. Headline tour. With them came Parkway Drive, Architects UK, Deez Nuts, and Of Legends. You can check out our review after the break.

The top portion of the poster for this tour reads:  “Witness The Greatest Show on Earth!  Madness & Mayhem!”  These words are a civil way to describe what went on at the House of Blues Wednesday night, so I’ll do my best to describe this invasion of foreigners that I was almost sure would bring down Chicago.

The opening band for this tour named ‘Of Legends’, who are only scheduled to appear from August 31 to September 17, did their best to fit into this foreign tour as the only American band on the bill.  There was very little response from the crowd for this band at first, but after announcing they were American, the crowd threw a USA chant right back at them, and all of a sudden the audience woke up and started moving.  The one song I recognized from Of Legends came off their February album release and is called, “Off Guard,” which begins with an angry and drawn out “What the fuck” lyrical intro. Towards the end of these Dallas-native’s set they announced that the crowd had “no excuse not to move unless they were in a fucking wheelchair” (and there was someone in a wheelchair at the show too), but this really set the audience off and the act ended with a bang.

The next band to take the stage was Deez Nuts from Melbourne, Australia, and boy did their sound surprise me.  My first thought with this band was that some of their songs sounded as if they had a bit of a pop feel to them, while still keeping with a hardcore theme.  Deez Nuts didn’t receive wild applause, but they certainly did their genre justice by keeping the crowd moving.  The Aussies played songs that it seemed most of the audience was at least familiar with, they screamed through “Like There’s No Tomorrow, “DTD,” “Your Mother Should Have Swallowed You,” “I hustle Everyday,” and my personal favorite from their set, “Sex Sells.”  This last one came off as a bit of a comedic song, but the crowd seemed to enjoy the wild chorus lines of “Dudes love pussy, bitches love dick!  If you’re fucking with them sluts, start fucking with them rubbers before your ass gets sick.”  I noticed even the House of Blues security couldn’t help but laugh at this song.

After cringing through the awkward set-change song of Kanye West’s “Heartless,” the UK-natives “Architects” took to the stage with a thunderous applause.  One of the major things I noted about this performance was that Architects really know how to work the stage.  Unlike the first two bands, the Architects moved around, used the platforms on stage to tower over the audience, and really tried to put on a show.  I recognized songs from the Architects like “Numbers Count For Nothing,” “Delete Rewind,” and “Follow the Water.”  The band requested circle pits, they kept up the energy, and overall the crowd responded really well to these guys.

I first saw Parkway Drive at the House of Blues in February of this year with The Ghost Inside and Set Your Goals, and I’ve got to say I think this performance was a whole lot better.  Parkway Drive promptly went on at 7:30pm and immediately had the crowd running around in circles, moshing, and jumping up and down with them to their breakdowns.  Songs like “Sleepwalker,” “Dead Man’s Chest,” and “Unrest” had the crowd moving the entire set.  I think it was during this set that I first felt the venue’s floor shaking from not only the giant speakers, but from the hopping of the entire audience on the general admission floor.  Lead singer Winston McCall was so pleased with the response from the crowd that he said, “Thank you, thank you, thank you, fuckin’ awesome.”

Bring Me The Horizon received the largest applause of the night, opening with “Diamonds Aren’t Forever,” as lead singer Oliver Sykes screamed out “We will never sleep,” and the audience yelled back “’cause sleep is for the weak.”  BMTH’s stage presence not only blew the other bands out of the water, but the response from the crowd in terms of yelling, screaming, jumping, and everything else was beyond comparable.  Besides the act itself the one thing I really liked about BMTH’s set was that they had two sets of 3×3 fake stacked Peavey speaker cabs that actually had four separate lights in them, which gave the band a cool glow and lights show for their set.  The guys played a whole list of songs that were gratefully accepted by the crowd. Here’s a bunch that everyone loved: “Alligator Blood”, “Football Season Is Over”, “Blessed With A Curse”, “Visions”, “Chelsea Smile”, “No Need For Introductions, I’ve Read About Girls Like You On The Backs Of Toilet Doors.”

One song that once again put a smile on everybody’s faces (including the security guards again), was “Fuck,” which has lyrics like, “Let’s fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, Let’s fuck till our lungs give out.”  Towards the end of the set a bunch of large black balloons came floating down from the balcony, giving the crowd something to bounce with while they themselves bounced around to the music.

This show was crazy!  Some other strange things that I noticed while wandering around were:  A guy running around in a Tigger costume (complete with tail), a guy running around with no shoes (that he lost in the mosh pit no doubt), and I thought it was odd that PETA had a large presence both inside the House of Blues and outside (but hey, it’s a metal show, I guess there’s a lot of vegetarians in the scene).

Information about the review…
Tour: Witness The Greatest Show on Earth!  Madness & Mayhem! Tour feat Bring Me The Horizon
Reviewer:  Mike Nutting
Bands:  Bring Me The Horizon, Parkway Drive, Architects UK, Deez Nuts, and Of Legends
Date: September 14, 2011
Venue:  House of Blues in Chicago, IL