Beartooth Embrace a New Era in London
Over the past month, Beartooth have been conquering venues all across Europe on their highly anticipated return in celebration of their sixth studio album, Pure Ecstasy. We caught up with them on the final leg of the tour, which started at the famous Brixton Academy in London, and they proved to be worth the wait.
At the offset, Californian band Kingdom of Giants take the stage facing a challenge that could break a live show: their drummer, Truman Berlin, is unable to play due to visa issues and being denied entry into the UK. The band takes an interesting approach to it, projecting iPhone videos from past performances onto the massive LED screen and using recorded drums from their Paris show earlier in the week. It works, and they even use the situation for a bit of back-and-forth with the audience as they start warming up the crowd. A highly energetic band, their opening set already sees crowd surfers and mosh pits forming, which can only mean good things for the rest of the night.
Next up, Canadian post-hardcore titans Silverstein do a great job of reminding everyone that ‘it was truly never a phase’ as they go through their quarter-of-a-century-long catalogue of emo and heavy anthems. From the riff-heavy intro of ‘Negative Space’ and the more melodic ‘Drain The Blood’, originally recorded with Dayseeker, to the barrage of crowd surfers that go over the barrier during the adrenaline-pumping ‘Smashed Into Pieces’, it’s clear that the evening belongs to them as much as it does to the headliner. In spite of some technical issues muddying the sound in places, they give their all and the crowd eats it up. Fan favourites ‘My Heroine’ and ‘Smile in Your Sleep’ are the pinnacle of their set before they end with the thundering ‘Bleeds No More’.
When it’s time for Beartooth to take the stage, we can’t help but think that, over the last year, a lot of things have changed and the online discourse, especially revolving around frontman Caleb Shomo’s personal life, has been loud. Choosing to publicly come out and state that all he wants to do is ‘be free to be himself’, a statement he’ll make himself later on in the set, accompanied by a sarcastic yet warm ‘You got to know way too much about what’s going on in my personal life’, has split the fanbase and left people questioning whether this will affect their live shows, amongst other things.
Safe to say, this is the best live show we’ve ever seen from Beartooth. They launch straight into ‘Pure Ecstasy’, the title song of their latest studio album and tour moniker, and Shomo’s vocals are better than they’ve ever been. It’s magnetic watching him command the stage, and the musicians around him are operating at maximum capacity as well.
‘Bullshit’ already sees a massive mosh pit forming, and by the third song, ‘Beaten in the Lips’, a conveyor belt of surfers is passing over the barricade. With the unrelenting energy packing the room, Shomo comes down to the side of the stage more than once, from interacting with photographers to looking like he’s about 20 seconds away from jumping into the crowd himself. It’s intoxicating to see the happiness and pride in his eyes.
The set relies heavily on the new album and the turning point it marks for the band. However, they do include some old staples, such as ‘Sunshine’ and the all-time fan favourite ‘In Between’. One of the most important moments comes with ‘Free’, which is Shomo’s testament to being truly yourself, as well as the finale. Returning to ‘In Between’, with the rest of the band now offstage, Shomo ditches the mic completely and starts bellowing the iconic lyrics once again, enticing the crowd into the biggest singalong of the night as they are left to finish the song on their own.
It was worth the wait to see Beartooth headline London. Next up for the UK fans, they’re due to play at Slam Dunk 2027, and that will definitely be an unmissable set.
