Bring Me The Horizon in Detroit

British five-piece Bring Me the Horizon came through Detroit on March 14 for the first time in several years. The American Nightmare tour stopped at the Masonic Temple with Bring Me the Horizon’s alternative post-hardcore sound headlining, and the one and only Underoath along with relative newcomer Beartooth supporting.

This was Bring Me the Horizon’s first Detroit show since the release of their fifth full-length album, “That’s the Spirit,” which took the band in a much more soulful direction, shedding their grungy, metalcore past. The evolution from the band’s second most recent release, “Sempiternal,” is astounding. Hearing songs from both records played live back to back, was an experience for loyal longtime fans that have been there through the years.

Recent releases, like “Happy and Thrones” have been dominating alternative/rock radio. They took an outside-of-the- box multimedia approach which was incorporated beautifully, weaving sing-along in seamlessly to truly captivate the crowd.

Heavy hits like “Shadow Moses’ and “Can You Feel My Heart?” that really marked freshman year of high school for fans my age, really made the show feel like a sub-cultural community event. At the beginning of the show, one fan passed around multi-colored hearts with printed instructions on them for people to hold their phone flashlights up during the song “Can You Feel My heart?” with the paper heart over the flashlight to illuminate it in a particular color. It was really endearing to see everyone, from teenage girls to middle-aged men, participate in something like that. The solidarity of the fan base was heartwarming.

Oliver “Oli” Sykes, lead singer of Bring Me the Horizon, has always been known for his high energy performances, and he didn’t disappoint. “This was my first concert, but it was actually ten times better than I even expected. I’m really glad I went,” said Salem senior Justin Mehl.