Oli Sykes has a question: “Does it still say ‘BMTH’ on the roads here?”
At the right junctions in Bournemouth, yes it does. Tonight, though, the authority with which Bring Me The Horizon stamp their name all over the south-coast seaside is more than a simple amusing coincidence of street-painted abbreviation. Barely a fortnight after the departure of Jordan Fish, and with the expected new record delayed again – this time confidently until summer – some had wondered about the effect of all this on a gigantic arena run. The answer is simple: after 20 years, theirs is a boat not so easily rocked.
Unlike Bournemouth, who get just that, in multiple fashions. First up on an excellently selected bill that amply shows the breadth and brilliance of music’s current crop of young bucks, Static Dress. Making Machine Gun Kelly look like a chump on Twitter isn’t the only thing frontman Olli Appleyard is good at, and he and his bandmates are an energetic treat for the early arrivers. The songs from their killer Rouge Carpet Disaster album are now absolutely jacked thanks to being dragged halfway around the world for the past year, and tonight they sound even more electrified than usual.
Cassyette, on the other hand, hadn’t played a gig since last summer before yesterday's tour curtain-up in Cardiff, instead beavering away on her long-awaited debut album. It’s slowed her down not one bit, mind. In songs like Petrichor and an enormous Dear Goth, Essex’s finest is an incandescent mix of star power and gobby sass, while on new banger Ipecac and Sex Metal’s burst of drum’n’bass “for all the ravers”, she grinningly teases 2024 as the year she finally explodes properly.