Bring Me The Horizon gave ‘Youtopia’ its live debut as they kicked off their ‘Ascension Program 2’ North American tour last night (April 23), as well as dusting off ‘The House Of Wolves’. Check out the footage below.
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Oli Sykes and co. took to the stage at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles, California, where they treated the crowd to a 17-song set, per Setlist.FM.
The Sheffield band played ‘Post Human: Nex Gen’ cut ‘Youtopia’ for the very first time midway through the main set, after opening with ‘Darkside’ from the 2024 album. Fan-shot videos of the performance have since emerged online.
Earlier in the show, BMTH delivered a live rendition of the rarity ‘The House Of Wolves’ from their 2013 album ‘Sempiternal’. It marked the first outing for the track since 2022, when it appeared once in the setlist after a few performances in 2020.
During an interview with NME in 2024, frontman Sykes explained that ‘Youtopia’ was about “the start of realising that I wasn’t fixed as I thought I was after rehab”.
“The first step was listening to myself,” he told us. “That’s what ‘Youtopia’ is about. It’s setting the scene of the whole record, and the goal where we hopefully end up at by the end of it is finding a perfect state of being, or a content state of being. A place where we’re happy. The main obstacle in most of our lives is what I say in the first few lines: ‘I still wish that I was someone else.'”
He continued: “I’m still rejecting myself and not fully accepting who I am. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve been through in your life: you have to accept who you are. It’s the first step of being happy.”
In a four-star review of ‘…Nex Gen’, NME wrote: “Kicking things off properly with ‘Youtopia’, BMTH hit us with what’s admittedly a rare dose of happiness. Idealising paradise through a love song of sorts, Sykes keeps his dreams grounded from the get-go. ‘There’s a place I wanna take you / But I’m not quite there myself,’ he admits, over a glorious yet murky riff that recalls Deftones’ 1998 hit ‘Be Quiet And Drive (Far Away)’.”
Bring Me’s performance of ‘The House Of Wolves’, meanwhile, comes at a time when the group are celebrating their past. Earlier this month, they announced two special shows for Manchester’s Outbreak to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their 2006 debut album, ‘Count Your Blessings’.
They are also releasing a “reactivated” re-recording of ‘Count Your Blessings’ on July 10 to coincide with the two concerts. Described as a “recontextualisation” of the original LP, the project will make BMTH’s first full-length effort “sharper, heavier, and more vital than ever”.
Following the news, Sykes shared a video of himself recording some deathcore screaming in the studio for the re-imagined album. “Took me a minute to work out how to do some of this shit again,” he said.
Bring Me The Horizon’s setlist at the Hollywood Bowl was:
1. ‘Darkside’
2. ‘The House Of Wolves’
3. ‘Mantra’
4. ‘Happy Song’
5. ‘Teardrops’
6. ‘Amen!’
7. ‘Kool-Aid’
8. ‘Shadow Moses’
9. ‘Youtopia’ (live debut)
‘[ost] p.u.s.s.-e’ (tape)
10. ‘Kingslayer’
11. ‘Antivist’
12. ‘Follow You’
13. ‘Lost ‘
14. ‘Can You Feel My Heart’
Encore:
15. ‘Doomed’
16. ‘Drown’
17. ‘Throne’
Bring Me recently brought their new L.I.V.E. In São Paulo concert film to cinemas worldwide for two days only. They held a 48-hour digital broadcast, too, ahead of the movie arriving on streaming platforms on April 10. The film, co-directed by Sykes, is described as an “immersive, multi-angle experience”.
In a glowing, five-star review, NME hailed Bring Me’s big screen offering as “a love letter to their fans and statement of greatness”.
Speaking to NME at Reading 2025, Sykes revealed that 12 more songs could be arriving at some point as part of the ‘Director’s Cut’ of ‘…Nex Gen’. However, he said this could take a while now that he is the father of twins.
“The music will come, but it’s just not the be-all and end-all,” Sykes told us. “We’re realising that we don’t have to put another record out; we just put one out. Most bands would go away for two years, have an actual break. You don’t have to do this, but I want to and I enjoy it. If it doesn’t happen, then it doesn’t happen.”
The group released a ravey but heavy collab with US musician, DJ and producer Illenium, ‘Slave To The Rithim’, earlier this year. Sykes then launched a new live production company, Patient Zero, after debuting some new visuals with Illenium at the Las Vegas Sphere.
As well as their current North American headline tour, BMTH will make stops at numerous festivals this year, including Rock For People, Nova Rock, Tons Of Rock, Sick New World and Sziget.