In the metal scene in 2024, there are Sleep Token, Bad Omens and the others. Late 2019, both bands played in Belgium. Both bands got about 70 people in the room. A pandemic later, they’re on the way to soldout the biggest venues worldwide! Bad Omens soldout the Ancienne Belgique in a very short time. We were there to see the new monster tour they built!
Announced many months ago. Soldout many months ago. You had to be quick if you wanna see Bad Omens on this huge indoor tour. Since the release of their third full length album The Death Of Peace Of Mind and the success of their single ‘Just Pretend‘ on Tik Tok, their success is growing massively day after day. Nowadays, only Sleep Token has the same hype. And we need to look way back to see metal bands with the same appeal. Architects? Their success is big now but it took years and many albums to achieve this. Electric Callboy? They blew up indeed with their latest album but it touches a bit less people. The bands we could compare are more Parkway Drive and especially Bring Me The Horizon. With their second album Suicide Season, they sold out the same kind of venues as Bad Omens on this tour. Who knows how big BMTH could have been if they grew up with Tik Tok… That being said, Bad Omens are the new rising stars of metalcore and we couldn’t be more happier to see such a band to lead a whole new generation.
To join them on this tour as opener and only other act, they choose another rising star and kinda brand new in the metal scene: Poppy. She’s been around for at least 8 years but waited for the Covid the come to the dark side and try some heavier style with good success too! More the level of a special guest than an opening act but we won’t complain. Now the suspense was to see if the Bad Omens’s fan were appealing or not at all: the question has been quickly answered and the answer is no. Almost all the venue is already packed in front of the stage but everybody stays still. No mosh pit, no real movements. Just thousands of people who discovered her.
Poppy used the large LED screen behind her and tried to make the show as powerful as possible with the help of her guitarist and drummer – even taking the bass herself sometimes – but the audience didn’t care. They were waiting for Bad Omens and nothing else. With hits like ‘Hard’, ‘Concrete’ or ‘I Disagree’, she played her most successful songs in her new heavy register with a great sound, a very cool display on stage. She’s gonna have more success on her headliner tour in the UK in 2 weeks for sure and we really hope she’ll come back to Mainland Europe to do the same soon enough in front of an audience curious and full of her fans.
Set-list : Bloodmoney, Church Outfit, Bite Your Teeth, I Disagree, X, Hard, Fill The Crown, Sit/stay, Anything Like Me, Scary Mask, Concrete.
After a short change-over, the lights finally went to let us enjoy the introduction of Bad Omens. Sadly, compared to the show we saw in Köln a week before, we knew tonight was gonna be a « cheaper » but still sick version of the show as the Ancienne Belgique doesn’t allow pyro inside. But we still have the big LED screens and smoke-bombs. The show in Germany has been streamed on Veep so you can have a look on the platform to find it to have a taste of the full production. The same they used for the US leg of this massive « Concrete Forever Tour ».
From the first seconds of ‘Artificial Suicide‘, the 2000 fans were already on fire.The sound is perfect as usual, the production is huge: all the elements for a night we’ll remember. It’s really rare to see such a packed room even with a soldout show. Many shows are soldout here but it’s usually easy to find a ticket on TicketSwap or just have some air in the crowd. But not tonight. Tonight, everybody wanted to see them, all the seated places were taken, the floor was packed and all the balconies taken as well. So we had this question in mind: if they had already chosen an arena like Lotto Arena or Forest National, would it have been soldout too?!
Obviously, The Death Of Peace Of Mind is taking the lead on the setlist with 11 songs (the album has 15) with only 5 old songs from the first 2 albums. Usually, with bands who blew up with one particular album, fans like to hear old stuff but ‘Glass Houses‘ isn’t really a highlight of the evening. All songs have perfect sing-along parts, the crowd is singing every song like it’s the last one of the show but some have a little bit more success like ‘Limits‘, ‘Bad Decisions’, ‘Never Know‘ and obviously: the radio/TikTok/mainstream single ‘Just Pretend’. If people had to choose one song to represent the band, they’d choose this one. When Noah asked the crowd to put all the phones in the air and light up the venue, it wasn’t a difficult task: all the phones were already in the air to record the song, many of them finally heard live for the first time.
In the middle of this huge show and huge setlist focused on the latest album, they obviously also played their brand new single ‘V.A.N.’ released a few days before the tour started featuring Poppy. What a coincidence, she’s right there… It’s not like Sam Carter of Architects with Spiritbox a few days ago: there was zero suspense here. This indus song with some heavy breakdowns in the end could be an official song from Bad Omens or from Poppy because Noah isn’t singing in the original song. But life, it’s a bit different: he’s there, hanging in the back before giving some screams in the second part of the song. It was like looking at the perfect couple.
Sadly, everything good thing has an end. But what an ending: after finishing with ‘Just Pretend’, the quatuor went back with an already classic encore of 2 songs, ‘Concrete Jungle’ and ‘Dethrone’. Probably the heaviest part of the whole evening, perfect way to end this massive show.
Set-list: Artificial Suicide, Like A Villain, Glass Houses, The Grey, What Do You Want From Me, Limits, IDWTS, Take Me First, Bad Decisions, Nowhere To Go, V.A.N (featuring Poppy), Broken Youth, Never Know, The Death Of Peace Of Mind, Just Pretend. Encore: Concrete Jungle, Dethrone.
In about 1h15, Bad Omens confirmed they are the leader of the new modern metalcore scene, an exemple for a whole generation, one of the biggest bands right now and proved they have the potential to go way higher! They’re still so young, they blew up only 2 years ago. Who knows what 2024 will bring them?!