By Hannah Ross
The vibes queuing outside of Co-Op Live for Bad Omens couldn’t have been better, with the air humming with excitement for what could possibly be one of the most highly anticipated metal gigs this year. Bad Omens feel like the next-gen arena headliners that alternative music has been waiting for, and having watched them support Bring Me The Horizon last year it’s easy to see why. The trajectory of their takeover should really be studied – with Bad Omens playing gigs on the club scene not too long ago.
Californian band The Ghost Inside started us off by delivering their own brand of gritty metalcore, running through their set with a ferocious energy. They are the underdogs tonight, but they make us forget that instantly; starting with ‘Avalanche’ and running through a bunch of fan favourites. By the time they launch into ‘Death Grip’ the crowd is well and truly pumped up, with a small but dedicated mosh pit causing chaos in the center of the crowd.
Bilmuri is next, and they absolutely kill it yet again. They’re always locked in as a band but they are especially tight tonight, with the chemistry between Johnny Franck and Gabi Rose pushing their sound to new heights. They start their set off as usual with ‘Emptyhanded’, and then launch into ‘All Gas’ (‘This song is about drinking five trillion beers’ – Johnny Franck, everybody). Midway through the set Jonny stops and asks us ‘Do you want to see my belly?’ Without waiting for an answer he lifts his shirt up to show us his belly. Unsurprisingly this does nothing to kill the momentum of their set.
I think it’s worth noting Gabi Rose’s impressive sax solo during ‘ABSOLUTELYCRANKINMYMF’INHOG’.
Her vocals are always off the chain, but here she really shines on her own. Midway through the set Gabi throws in a few notes from the Zelda theme on the flute – a routine of theirs that never fails to get a smile from me and a shout of “THAT’S FROM THE LEGEND OF ZELDA” to whichever poor person i’m watching Bilmuri with. They mention how happy they are to be here tonight, as some of the band were sick the night before and “bound to the porcelain throne” as Johnny so eloquently put it. I think myself and everyone at Co-op Live that night was extremely happy that they made it off the porcelain throne to grace us with their set.
If you haven’t seen Bilmuri yet, you really really need to.
After Bilmuri finished, we decided to check out the merch. Even with the multiple merch stations at Co-op Live the merch queues were immense. The merch queue merged with the queue for the bar, and I asked one girl further back in the queue if she was waiting for the merch. She looked at me like I was crazy and nodded a yes. Of course everyone is after a Bad Omens shirt. We however managed to pick up some Bilmuri shirts and then headed back in for Bad Omens.
As Bad Omens take the stage the reception is immense, with the crowd screaming their adoration at frontman Noah Sebastian. A twin peaks-esque tape was used to set the tone for their set, with the show itself being divided into 5 chapters, or “tapes”. The show opened with their recent single, ‘Specter’, showcasing Sebastian’s immense vocal abilities. All night he effortlessly switches between haunting melodies and powerful screams, at seemingly no cost to his voice. Looking over at the crowd it seems as if everyone there knows every word, even the one guy dressed as a banana (why is there always a guy dressed like a banana at metal gigs?).
Recent singles ‘Dying to Love’ and ‘Left For Good’ were greeted with insane amounts of enthusiasm. The floor quickly became a chaotic throng of emotional dancing during the heavier songs, with a wall of death erupting during ‘Nowhere to Go’. The band literally had to pause during ‘Limits’ due to a crowd injury—a moment handled nicely by Sebastian and the Bad Omens team.
Pyro jets brought the fire for ‘Glass Houses’ and ‘CONCRETE JUNGLE’, with swirling web-like visuals punctuating the intensity of their performance. The production on this tour must have cost a pretty penny, with each song having its own set of visuals and dynamic lighting. The end of their set brought mountains of white confetti raining down onto the crowd to the soundtrack of ‘Impose’.
Bad Omens weren’t going to end the night without fulfilling an encore though, coming back on stage to deliver the heavy ‘Dethrone’; throwing plumes of pyro at the crowd and cementing themselves in people’s minds as a band that can command arenas with ease.
Bad Omens will livestream their Amsterdam show this coming Friday (12 December).
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