In the early 2000s the place to find new music was via Kerrang TV or Scuzz, by the 2010s YouTube was the place to go for up-and-coming artists, tonight’s headline band Bad Omens owe a lot of their recent popularity to the latest place to discover new music: TikTok.
On a very cold February evening, the Bad Omens Concrete Jungle Tour has made its way to Leeds Beckett Student Union. Oxymorrons, an American alternative hip hop rock band from Queens, New York were first to take the stage. With some technical difficulties as one of the lead microphones stopped working during the first song, Dave “D” Bellevue and Ashmy “KI” Bellevue both on vocals, took the time to explain the reason behind the spelling of their band name (Two R’s, not one). The story goes that it is a way around having to pay $25k to a German punk band who already claimed the name Oxymorons in the 70s and wouldn’t let them use it.
Being a new name to me, I’m always interested to see how many people turn up for the acts and know their songs and there was definitely a good portion of the growing crowd singing along to some of their songs, especially their newest song “Enemy”, which considering this is only their second ever gig in the UK, is a good sign of things to come for the band. Before “Definition”, the Bellevue brothers stated, “We got tired of people telling us what our music should sound like. If it feels good, then it is good!” Which received a huge cheer from the crowd and is a statement I feel a lot of people can agree with. It’s clear that all four of the band love being on stage and gave a really enthusiastic performance. They really managed to get the crowd going and it’s very rare that you see the level of activity and response to prompts for the first band of the night.
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Ghøstkid bounced onto the stage opening with “Fool” and instantly had the crowd in the palm of their hand, getting everyone down on the ground. Hats off to the crowd, as the entire middle of the room ed in. Arguably one of their biggest songs “Start a Fight” followed with the first mosh pit of the night (with plenty more to come) when prompted by lead singer Sebastian “Sushi” Biesler.
Something you rarely see at a gig is both guitarist (Jan Marco “Jappo” Heinz) and bass player (Stanislaw “Stanni” Czywill) getting down into the crowd and into the centre of a circle pit. With so many of the crowd filming the shenanigans, Biesler asked the crowd “Are you guys having fun?” To which I think the very unanimous answer was yes! Their newest single “Hollywood Suicide” released only about four weeks ago went down well with the crowd despite Biesler stating at the end, “I fucked up the lyrics”.
Bass player Czywll clearly liked being in the crowd and didn’t want to stay on the stage for the whole set as towards the end of their performance, he made his way up onto the balcony at the back of the room, leaning over daringly far while continuing to play effortlessly. It’s always nice to see bands helping out at their own merch stand and showing an interest in meeting their fans and Biesler told the crowd that he wanted “To hang out, make some new friends and have a beer,” with the crowd once the show was finished.
As soon as the lights dimmed the crowd went crazy but when lead singer of Bad Omens Noah Sebastian took the stage the crowds volume erupted with excitement. Opening with the track tonight’s tour is named after, “Concrete Jungle”, the whole venue sung every word back to the band on stage and this continued throughout the entire set. Sebastian started the evening with his signature look, sporting a long black coat and one leather glove, an aesthetic which changed throughout the evening slowly removing items of clothing, firstly losing the coat to reveal a turtleneck jumper with the addition of a balaclava, then finally a black vest top.
During “Nowhere To Go” the crowd were asked if they know what a wall of death was followed by “I’d like to see the biggest one this room has ever seen,” and the fans did not disappoint. It’s evident throughout all of Bad Omens’ music that Sebastian has an incredible vocal range from deep growls to high octaves like in the intro to “The Gray”, but to sound so much like the recorded versions of their song live is an amazing talent.
With only five songs that were not from the band’s newest album, The Death of Peace of Mind, the night was definitely them showcasing their newest material, and although it was obvious that there was a lot of hardcore fans in the crowd, it was clear that everyone is absolutely loving their latest material, which coincidentally was released exactly a year ago. “Limits” saw pretty much every phone that was in the room recording, not surprisingly one of their most popular songs from the album Finding God Before God Finds Me.
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The song that saw the band blow up on social media, “Just Pretend”, was the final song of the main set. It seemed like every member of the audience decided to also record this track (following the TikTok trend), and I know we live in the age of technology, however I feel like making the decision that some of the audience did to record every single song of a set rather than concentrating and enjoying the moment kind of detracts from the experience that you’ve paid to see (although I may just be getting old).
It wouldn’t be a gig in Leeds if there wasn’t the signature chants of “Yorkshire!” and I’m always intrigued to see if bands will pick up on this or be confused by the chant if it’s their first time hearing it. However Sebastian incorporated it into his intro to “Dethrone”, along with his deep growls of “Concrete” with the call back from the crowd of “Jungle” during the encore.
Sebastian commanded the stage throughout the entire set with a show that was well rehearsed and mesmerising from start to finish. The only possible mistake was the bands management completely underestimating how popular the band would become over the past year. With certain dates on this tour having been upgraded twice and extra dates added, tonight’s gig has gone from originally being planned at the 300-person capacity Key Club to a venue capable of holding 1100 people, and still sold out. I think next time the band return to the UK they will be booking larger venue straight away.
