Event Horizon! BMTH take it to the NEx LeVeL as they being their enormo-show to Welcome To Rockville 2026

“Are you fans of circle-pits?” Oli Sykes goads an already feverish crowd, wringing the very last from Saturday night. “It doesn’t look like it. It doesn’t look like you’ve ever heard of what a circle-pit is...”

Earlier lightning storms led to a temporary site evacuation again on day three of Welcome To Rockville 2026, but Bring Me The Horizon aren’t about to let themselves be upstaged by a little thing like the wrath of God. No, tonight is the first time they’ve brought NeX GEn to Florida. We’re at the witching hour, but heavy eyes and weary legs will need to wait as Sheffield’s finest steal the show.

“Let’s break some fuckin’ bones,” the ravenous ringleader continues to stoke, his Yorkshire accent cranked up to 11. “Let’s do some fuckin’ brain damage. Daytona, pull the fuckin’ tampon out!”

Brutal banter aside, this colossal Florida crowd is bearing witness to an outrageously polished performance. The Daytona International Speedway – sort of a U.S. answer to Silverstone – has seen more than its share of well-oiled machines over the decades, but now over two years in, this incredible iteration of the Bring Me live show would give any of them a run for their money.

Chances are, at this point, interested parties will already know the NeX GEn hallmarks. A massive video production repurposes the imagery of classic survival horror Resident Evil 2 for a modernist masterclass in cutting-edge. Digital demon E.V.E. is a sort of extra avatar for Oli, demanding more and more from fans even when he’s taking a breather. Screens are constantly flickering, sometimes with pre-rendered imagery, but often adapting in real-time to footage of the band and fans. One punter fumbling a chaotic video call in the middle of the pit couldn't be more perfect.

The set list remains immaculate. Cranked to eardrum-battering volume, The House Of Wolves, MANTRA and Happy Song should feel like an overwhelming onslaught but, even at this titanic scale, Horizon are able to pick out shades of playfulness, swagger and vulnerability. Teardrops is a particular highlight this evening, weaving threads of the band’s heroes, from In Flames to Nine Inch Nails, into a staggeringly dynamic sonic fabric. Pulling down the temple for Kool-Aid has become an onstage set piece for the ages, while Shadow Moses might be the biggest sing-along all weekend.

Somehow, though, this show stands above what we’ve seen before. Oli is a frontman who relishes big nights like these, but where he has felt a tad distant, glazed over, even, at some massive outings this last few years, here he is clear-eyed and wholly dialled-in. Playing to an impressively agile onstage cameraman almost as much as the crowd would be ill-judged by anyone less skilful but the singer incorporates it flawlessly, throwing himself around with utter commitment, daring the lens to pick out subtle twitches, grimaces and grins that would otherwise be lost on fans a few feet away let alone a few thousand. Even the old-fashioned bit where he picks “Banana Man” in fancy dress from the heaving throng to sing Antivist comes across as audaciously postmodern.

Last time Kerrang! caught this show Stateside, we suggested that Bring Me were behind only legends like Iron Maiden and Def Leppard as a British musical export over here. As Can You Feel My Heart closes the main set with a wave of catharsis before Oli pulls on a flower crown chucked onstage for a gargantuan encore of Doomed, Drown and Throne, that ranking feels unfair. Oli and the lads are to those bands – or, indeed, fellow Rockville headliners Guns N’ Roses and Foo Fighters – what modern rocket ships are to the old Apollo Program.

Debts will always be owed to the trailblazing originals, but the tides of time beat in only one direction and, in 2026, the future of heavy music belongs to Bring Me The Horizon.

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