Film review: Bring Me The Horizon L.I.V.E. In São Paulo

Let’s get this out of the way now: Bring Me The Horizon’s L.I.V.E. In São Paulo concert film is an absolute triumph, and should be the standard for all live music features going forward. Where some will settle for a handful of cameras roaming the stage, the Sheffield heavyweights have upped the ante and then some for one of the most impressive concerts ever put on the big screen.

There are cameras onstage, in the mosh-pit, drones are circling inside and outside the vast Allianz Parque Stadium… fans were even invited to send in their own phone footage to ensure every angle, cry and scream is covered, like a Google Streetview car had parked up in the middle of a wall of death. It’s as immersive as it’s possible to be without being caked in sweat on the front row.

Recorded at the tail-end of 2024 in Brazil’s largest city, this is Horizon’s biggest-ever headline show, selling out to a whopping 50,000 baying fans. And those familiar with the band’s story will know that an achievement such as this was never written in the stars, having clawed their way from the deathcore dive bar circuit and into the world’s most famous arenas over a period of 20 years, facing scrutiny at every turn, all while managing to completely overhaul what it meant to be a metal band in the mid-2010s and leaving scores of bands playing catch-up.

Much of this rise to the top is depicted in a rapid-fire digest of the band’s ascension, from the chaotic early house shows to decimating Warped Tour to finally headlining Download Festival – there’s even footage of Oli Sykes’ Kerrang! cover shoot with his childhood hero Chester Bennington. And now here they are, two decades on from the Edge Of Your Seat EP, playing to a tens of thousands on the other side of the world. Drummer Mat Nicholls and Oli even joke to each other on the way to the stage just how mad their lives have worked out.

But it’s not just a film about the people onstage, it’s about the fans. Ahead of the show, we meet various people for whom Horizon are more than just a band, including one gentleman who lost his sister, and gets visibly emotional when showing off his various song-related tattoos, discussing how they helped him through the darkest of times. He is just one of many interactions that strike at the heart of how BMTH have become a global phenomenon and why their music means so much to people 6,000 miles away from where it was written.

The show itself feels like the band’s fully-realised vision of their POST HUMAN narrative. Opening like a video game, from the moment you press start this is more than just a gig, with a dystopian, cyber-warfare narrative and recurring characters like E.V.E, Selene and M8, adding ever more layers to the lore that Horizon have created and the storyline that has become so intertwined with their live experience.

On the music side, of course, it’s a greatest hits of modern-day Bring Me (although M8 does joke about wanting Pray For Plagues), all introduced onscreen like different realms in an open-world platformer. From Kool-Aid and AmEN! to Kingslayer and Parasite Eve to Can You Feel My Heart and Drown – and a stirring Follow You that sees two different couples get engaged in the crowd – it’s a deafening reminder of how monstrous Horizon’s catalogue has become in the past decade, without a single lull in momentum, as demonstrated by the unrelenting nature of the swarming crowd over 90-plus minutes.

Speaking Portuguese at various junctures throughout, Oli tells the congregation that when he fell in love with a Brazilian woman, he didn’t think he’d fall in love with an entire country as well. Who have fallen just as hard for the Steel City titans.

In all, what BMTH achieved in São Paolo with this movie is nothing short of sensational. The ambition, the creativity, the sheer scale of the whole thing simply highlights how they are operating on a different level right now. It’s the perfect encapsulation of the Horizon live experience and needs to be seen on the biggest screen possible. Just imagine what they’ll come up with next time.

Verdict: 5/5

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• Oli Sykes: “I still feel like the underdog… But it’s important to stop smell the roses, and to be like, ‘This is f*cking amazing, what we’ve achieved’”