Live Review: Bring Me The Horizon, Architects, '68

There's no escaping the convergence of once pure genres, and heavy metal - in a pledge to reach a mainstream audience - has adopted a growing preference for cleanskin vocals and pop-rock-cum-nu-metal leanings. Ask a life-long Bring Me The Horizon fanatic about their feelings towards the Brit's fifth offering That's The Spirit and you'll find yourself the recipient of an onslaught of opinions. But division aside, there's no testament to a band's rising iconic status like a sold-out crowd packed sweaty and screaming into Hordern Pavilion, in a show that united both old and new.

Snaps for anyone who found a park with enough time to catch Atlanta's punk rockers '68 open the night, with AFL fans clogging up every street around Moore Park and no end to the sea of brake lights. They tore through a short, adrenaline-pumping 'Goldilocks' set; not too hard, not too soft. A perfect teaser for Brighton five-piece Architects, who barrelled headfirst into our eardrums with distorted djent-djent-djent riffs and Sam Carter's formidable bellow, driving the crowd pitted wall-to-wall into a frenzy.

And then a universe exploded onto the screens and Bring Me The Horizon became the centre of ours for the next two hours. A united roar wiped every other thought from our minds as Happy Song washed over the euphoria below. Cannons blasted streamers from the rafters and smoke from the stage; we screamed and gnashed our teeth.

There was a visible disparity between puritanic supporters and the green triple j mob gagging for a top-to-toe That's The Spirit setlist, and both were given orgasmic relief with the best of both worlds. Oli Sykes called for more than two circle pits and he got them. Bursting forth from the Hordern's stage towers was enough distortion from Lee Malia for us to empathise with the raging tinnitus that played a part in Curtis Ward's exit, but we missed the rumbling bass that would have been provided with rear-positioned speakers.

And then we were enveloped by the opening hush and pulse of Doomed, syncing our heartbeats and uniting us in our desperate cries - at once releasing the anger, sorrow and feeling called to experience it. Bring Me The Horizon might have metaphorically bashed us about the ears with older tracks, but the thematically confronting lyricism in their latest pop-centric effort brought a level of catharsis that didn't exclude.

Bring Me The Horizon revel in equal adoration and disappointment from their following. For a band that received the double-edged accolade of the lowest selling number one album in the history of the ARIA charts - a title they held from 2010 until April this year - this is old news. But their metamorphosis from 18-year-olds playing deathcore and vomiting on stage to a snug radio slot between SAFIA and Bon Iver has ultimately won them more fans than they will ever lose; we saw that tonight. And no one could sum it up better than Sykes himself: "You have a choice to make; you can go left or you can go right. Those are the only choices you have, so you better fucking move." Bring Me The Horizon are moving in the right direction.