By Jase Walker
Who’s horny for thorny? This guy. Finally a proper headline tour that I can make it to, Thornhill are midway through a stomp through Europe and ÜK over the chilly months of October and November and I’ve arrived at one of my favourite venues in the Netherlands, De Helling. But what makes this tour even better, is that it’s an Aussie all-star tour featuring Ocean Grove and Bloom in tow… tasty stuff!
It’s a fully sold out show tonight too and with three bands all set to give it both barrels, I’ll be keeping one eye on my pint while getting sucked into the show!
It’s time for Bloom to kick things off and they have a bit of a random false start and the chatter of the room briefly died off. Suddenly the intro song booms across the speakers, it’s time. The room is already becoming steadily more full, they’ve got a real solid turnout for the opening act!
Absolutely zero pretense for these guys, it’s the opening slot and there’s no time for fucking about but they manage to get a pit to open up and after a brief bit of hesitation people flood into it. This is something I find is a pretty consistent thing about Aussie bands, they want to have a great time every bit as much as the crowd and they’ll always pour everything into the show. Their style of post-hardcore reminds me so strongly of the likes of early Funeral For A Friend but as always mixed with the signature Aussie flair of having a catchy riff to hook onto. The use of shared vocal duties adds wonderful texture to the melodies, often being very floaty in contrast to the riffy music behind it.
For Bloom, this sort of slot is something they clearly do not take for granted as they put their blood, sweat and tears into what little time they have to create the biggest possible impact. Picking a wide spread of songs through their catalogue, some more energetic than others, it’s a set that they’ve picked carefully to show different facets of their style.
Despite the changes of pace, every single song has a common thread of high energy music and emotionally charged lyrics. The song to wrap up leans much more heavily towards a metalcore sound, especially on the last part with the singer demonstrating some disgusting gutturals. Bloom killed it again, they’ll be back with their own headline tour before long – I guarantee it.
The room darkens and the stage lights start flashing and I can feel the tension in the atmosphere rising. Ocean Grove are about to destroy the place and I know it. The crowd is immediately bouncing right from the get go, Ocean Grove’s nu-metalcore style is ferocious to witness every time.
Their brash energy never fails to get people losing their minds, the influences of the nu-metal titans of the likes of POD, Limp Bizkit, Korn, all very much present and brilliantly fused with modern metalcore energy. Ocean Grove themselves bounce around the stage every bit as much as the crowd in front of them, the symbiotic relationship between the band and throngs of people enthralled by them is on full display, only briefly pausing for breath in the more atmospheric moments then throwing themselves back into a frenzy on the heavier moments.
The low end frequencies on their sound is absolutely devastating, every single hit of the bass drum, the bass guitar, accompanying synths, it’s all shaking the absolute hell out of my chest and legs and yet somehow everything else is perfectly crisp and comes through with immense clarity.
The feel of the crowd is truly electric, even people who don’t seem to really know the band super well are fully lost in the experience of it all. A full and proper spinning circle pit erupts and repeatedly bounces off the sound desk, the sound engineer seems fairly indifferent to it and quickly adjusts his desk after it gets knocked around.
In a similar way to what I saw at Pendulum earlier this week, the crowd bounces together loudly chanting “Hey! Hey! Hey!” and temporarily drowns the band out with its volume, Dutch crowds really are something else. I’ve been so enamoured with this show it’s barely registered that we’re already at the end of the set. You can literally feel the sweat in the room from the sheer amount of movement that this room has seen throughout Ocean Grove’s set, I think these have done more than just warm the room up for Thornhill.
Absolutely spectacular show, I’ve never seen a bad show from these and to think the band I saw years ago playing a small room in Manchester has grown to this level of commanding presence is a fantastic journey to have been part of. If sone people in this room didn’t know who Ocean Grove were prior to this show, they fucking do now.
Finally, it’s time for a big meaty set from Thornhill! They kick things off and the shuffling of people barging past to get closer to the action is fully kicking off!
It’s striking how Thornhill are taking their material and making it sound so much better live to the point of absolute absurdity. Thornhill sound absolutely monstrous, whoever is doing their sound is absolutely killing it, this is the sort of sound that befits a band playing a stage many times bigger than this. It’s pretty clear that their high profile support slots, most notably Sleep Token in North America, has had a significant impact on their live performance!
I’m still happy that ‘The Dark Pool’ material gets its chance to shine during this set and sounds even more insane than it ever has done. Following ‘Lily And The Moon’ with ‘Where We Go When We Die’ is fucking unreal though, excellent choice. Forgetting the words isn’t an issue either: the crowd knows them all and gladly fills in the blanks.
People are fully in flow with crowd surfing to the stage, jumping off it, floating to the back and all over again. It’s a sold out show and people came here to go mental, doesn’t matter that it’s a Thursday, what matters is that Thornhill are smashing out one of the best sets I’ve seen them ever play and fuck tomorrow morning. It’s pure madness, people are all over the place and several have come over my head in the space of a few minutes. It’s fully impossible to not be part of this rabble anywhere in the room, everyone here is going nuts all the way to the back of the room, there’s no hiding from this.
It’s great seeing Thornhill fully embrace the lack of barriers and people crowd surfing up to the stage. I’m totally lost in the experience of this. Thornhill as a headline show over in Europe is a definitive culmination of years of hard work put into action. While we may not have had the privilege of seeing Thornhill in their formative early years due to the distance, we get to see Thornhill as an experienced and fully self-confident way that no doubt will be capitalising on it.
They’ve truly found their sound in ‘Bodies’. ‘Heroine’ was still a bit of a difficult album for me with such a significant departure in sound but with it eventually leading to ‘Bodies’ I can see why it had to happen. The impact that Thornhill have on me and continues to do so with them finally making their mark on Europe has been a journey I’ve been so privileged to watch them make over the past few years.
‘Obsession’ sees the most aggressive pit of the night (so far) and I thought these weren’t going to do an encore but it’s a sold out show so apparently they’re going for it! They’ve brought on the drummer of Ocean Grove, who mixed ‘Bodies’, to wrap the set up with ‘nerv’.
I had high expectations for their headliner show and they’ve completely smashed them to bits. An excellent setlist that champions ‘Bodies’ as much as it digs through their back catalogue and makes their recorded music seem somewhat boring by comparison in the best possible way.
Thornhill are on a warpath right now, there’s no other way to say it: they’re carving their own way and there is nothing going to stop them doing it.
- The tour continues in Glasgow tonight (Tuesday 4 November), taking in dates in Nottingham, Leeds, Manchester and Wolverhampton before finishing at the sold out O2 Islington Academy on Sunday (9 November).
- Thornhill have just been confirmed for Download 2026, which will be headlined by Limp Bizkit, Guns N’ Roses and Linkin Park.
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