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BMTH x UnderOATH @ The Shrine Expo Hall

April 12, 2017

Me and the boys at Never Made were out again and at another show this past weekend. It was the Bring Me The Horizon x UnderOATH show at The Shrine Auditorium/ Expo Hall at USC. It was an odd going out to show on a Thursday night in DTLA, however, with music playing a huge influence and inspiration to the creative process and conceptual ideas at Never Made, we nutted up and went out.

UnderOATH has been a band that we have been listening to since they came out with their third album, The Changing of Times and the song from that album “When The Sun Sleeps”. Their melancholic and metalcore sound was fitting my taste at that time and age. Their next two albums, They’re Only Chasing Safety and Define The Great Line were both great albums and have some memorable songs. This was our main preference of albums that we listen to theirs and going to the show, we were stoked to listen to songs from that album.

Bring Me The Horizon has been another band that I have been listening since they came out, mainly since their Count Your Blessings album. What I love about this band is their progression and growth as band. Starting out as a heavy AF deathcore band with brutal vocals and heavy ass breakdowns, and then with each album after that, Suicide Season, There Is a Hell, Believe Me, I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven, Let's Keep It a Secret, Sempiternal, and now their last album That’s The Spirit; you can hear the growth and maturity as an artist in the albums. You start to hear the change in the song “The Sadness Will Never End” from the Suicide Season album. They began bringing the melancholic sound out in that song and they continue that growth and tested that approach and sound more in There Is a Hell, Believe Me, I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven, Let's Keep It a Secret, Sempiternal. The trend continued and was mastered in Sempiternal. That album is a favorite album mine of theirs and it’s just well done and a great complete album. With that said, even though UnderOATH goes back to our younger years and is more nostalgic for us, BMTH was the band we were low-key more stoked to see.

UnderOATH was first to play. For some fucking reason, not really because we know why, but they went on stage at 8. Yes, the show started at 7, but fuck! Let a man enjoy his beer first and let the whole team get their first before you start playing. Anywho, they started at 8. Right off the bat, the sound sucked. Not sure if it was the band themselves, or the sound engineer not hearing what we hear, but it was off. It really did set the tone for their set. Even with the poor sound and being outside, hearing some classics such as: “A Boy Brushed Red Living in Black and White”, “Reinventing Your Exit”, “It's Dangerous Business Walking Out Your Front Door”, “In Regards to Myself”, and “Writing On The Walls”, was fucking dope to hear live and goes back to ‘05-’07. Their stage presence was overall good. For a guy our age, the keyboardist, Chris Dudley, goes HAM on stage and handbangs hard AF. They played all the jams we wanted to hear, so when they were done with their set, we were good.

Couple beers and trips to the bathroom later, Bring Me The Horizon took the stage and holy fuck, did they not disappoint. First off, let me talk about how dope their production was from the show. They had this High Definition string screen that was CLEAN! It literally made the set 10000x better. The images and videos that they played on the screen during the songs blended so smoothly with the songs and matched the energy of the performance.

The screen was able to bring such bright and vivid colors to the set and created this dope contrast and shadow of the band that was sick to watch. And who doesn’t like seeing big air cannons shooting smoke and confetti out to the crowd like your favorite money shot scene?!?!

Moving on now. Their sound was much better that UnderOATH. The sound was clean and we could hear the songs perfectly. Olies mic could’ve been turned up a bit, but that’s me being picky. It was fine. They played a good mixture of songs from most of their albums. No songs from Count Your Blessings which was ok, but the hardcore scene kid in me wanted to hear “Braille: For Stevie Wonder’s Eyes Only” and mosh to it. Not saying old man didn’t mosh, but man, my body can’t move like it once did. Dying after one breakdown! Fortunately, we are all huge fans of Sempiternal and they play a lot of songs from that album like “Go To Hell, For Heavens Sake”, Sleepwalking”, and “Shadow Moses”. All great songs from that album and amazing to hear live. They also played a favorite song of mine from That’s The Spirit, “Drowned”. With the production and the set list of great songs, BMTH put on an amazing set and one of the best I have seen this year.

Alright, catch us next time at a show, say what’s up to us. You may never know, we might have some free things to giveaway! NOODLEZ!