Live Report: Bring Me The Horizon make their triumphant return to Dublin

Hands clapped, people stomped and ran into one another, tears were shed and confetti was cast into the crowd. Dublin welcomed Bring Me The Horizon back to the city at the 3Arena with open arms and excitement.

On January 23, Bring Me The Horizon performed for their Irish fans for the first time in over a decade, excited to see old fans and welcome new ones. The group stopped in Dublin as a part of their Nx_Gen World Tour.

First up of the support acts were Static Dress, a Leeds rock band that consists of vocalist Olli Appleyard, drummer Sam Kay, bassist Connor Reilly and guitarist Tom Black. Despite being restricted to a limited portion of the large stage, they owned it.

In his cropped white button down shirt, Appleyard bounded around the stage, ending the final song ‘clean' by jumping up in the air, arms raised and slamming the microphone to the floor. Once landed, he held his arms in the air triumphantly as the audience cheered.

The crew quickly got to work pulling back a layer of the stage to reveal strobe lights, two stadium screens and an orange banner that told us Bad Omens were playing next.

When the arena went dark, the screens flashed a black-and-white video of a hooded figure dressed in all black, complete with a mask covering his face. “You don’t even see yourself," he told the crowd in robotic voice – just as bass guitarist Joakim “Jolly” Karlsson took centre stage and started strumming the intro to ‘ARTIFICIAL SUICIDE'.

Their set was stopped for a moment halfway through when someone in the pit collapsed and frontman Noah Sebastian directed security in their direction. When the band returned on stage Sebastian told the crowd, “Alright y’all, take care of each other out there.” The group ended their set with crowd pleaser ‘Dethrone'.

When the clapping and moshing had died down, once again, the crew got to work peeling back the last layer of that stage to expose more screens that displayed church-style stained glass windows, two levels of risers, and extra staging on the side.

The moment nine o’clock hit, an AI generated girl named EVE appeared and welcomed the stadium to the Bring Me The Horizon post-human live experience. The last words of her intro asked the crowd: “Are you ready to live your lives like you’re ready to die?”

The pulsating beat of ‘DArkSide’ served as the walk-out song for vocalist Oli Sykes who told the crowd to “get the fuck up!” right before the beat dropped and confetti and smoke streams filled the arena.

Bring Me The Horizon @3 Arena 23-01-24

In his all-black garb, complete with black eyeliner that cut down the centre of his under eye, the camera followed Skyes and his other band members guitarist Lee Malia, bassist Matt Kean and drummer Mat Nicholls.

The crowd was decked out in black and red, returning fans wore their old merchandise – and some had even painted their star like logo on their faces.

The arena echoed with the sound of over 11,000 voices singing ‘Teardrops’ back at the band as they smiled back at them. As ‘AmEN!’ played, six mosh pits started to form in the pit. As they threw their bodies side to side the moshes collided and combined with one another. Skyes picked up on the eagerness of the crowd stating that it was their “chance to make the biggest pit of the tour, [and] if you don’t want to participate move to the far left or right.”

Bring Me The Horizon slowed down the show and brought on the band members together centre stage for an acoustic version of ‘sTraNgeRs’ surrounded by a blue cloudy fog. The audience reached their arms out to the stage and gripped their hearts.

Bring Me The Horizon were connecting all of them through this performance. When the last note was sung the crowd jumped, screamed and wiped tears from their eyes.

Skyes also brought back the lead vocalist from both Static Dress and Bad Omen to sing with him. Appleyard came back out for ‘Diamonds Aren’t Forever’ and Sebastian for ‘Antivist.’

Bring Me The Horizon @3 Arena 23-01-24

Bring Me THe Horizon truly connected with the audience for their last two songs. Before he sang ‘Drown,’ Skyes hopped off stage and fell into the arms of his adoring audience, turning the mic to them to sing together. Skyes smiled as he leaned back into the crowd, feeling the love and admiration around him.

Right before their final song ‘Can You Feel My Heart’, Skyes stopped the show once again as a girl collapsed in the pit. Security rushed in as Skyes implored the audience to make a gap for them. The workers in the neon yellow vests were applauded as they had made a path through the crowd so the girl could be taken out.

Skyes came back on stage and once again asked if everyone was okay – which the audience replied to with a chorus of yeses and cheers. The show continued and they performed ‘Can You Feel My Heart’ which Skyes said he “wrote when he didn’t think he would have a band to perform it with.”

Pink heart-shaped confetti explored from the stage as they sang. Once they took their bow the crowd chanted “oh lay oh lay oh lay oh lay” begging for an encore. When everything went quiet, a black and white video started playing on the screens.

It highlighted some of the best moments from Bring Me The Horizon’s career including recording songs, shows, and fan interaction. They came back on stage, and performed three more songs, ‘Doomed,’ ‘LosT’ and ‘Throne,’ before sending their well wishes to the crowd.

The audience erupted into applause. The 3Arena vibrated with the cheers for a group that will remain timeless, thanks to the love of their fans.

Bring Me The Horizon @3 Arena 23-01-24