Black Veil Brides – Manchester Academy, with Cemetery Sun & Lilith Czar.

Wednesday night in Manchester with a room full of Emos old and young, this is going to be interesting. You’re in a room surrounded by a crowd of people half of which can kneel to the ground ready for a pit and those who need a knee brace. But nonetheless everyone here is ready!

Within minutes the room is packed and everyone is already changing for Black Veil Brides, even though they’re not on for another two hours.

First act Cemetery Sun immediately blows me away, the energy these guys have is perfect for this very emo night. Every song being about heartache and sadness is exactly what everyone in this room needed! The crowd has gone nuts, there’s no need to build up the energy to warm everyone up for the main act, because everyone in this room is already hyped up. But then again there was probably a lot of Monster Energy involved.

Next up with her latest project after ditching the name Juliet Simms, Lilith Czar takes to the stage, taking away the blonde hair and giving herself an edger look and name which works perfectly for this crowd tonight. Within seconds she’s a fan favourite, this woman has the presence that makes you love her within seconds and you feel safe around her. She has incredible mid-range vocals that service the songs perfectly, she nailed a cover of ‘Edge of Seventeen’ by Stevie Nicks, which is a song that is hard to match the energy and vocal range too, but Lilith nailed it!

The opening monologue before ‘King’ was incredibly intense. Lilith is amazing as a person and as a performer, quite a few times throughout the night the show had to be stopped to help someone in the crowd who had passed out, with her bending down to check on the fans at the barrier constantly throughout the show. Making points about being who you are no matter what and not changing yourself to fit another person, making points about feminism and women sticking together, really made this an amazingly powerful performance.

It’s time, looking around the crowd when I’m standing in the photo pit, I’m spotting fans of different ages and fans that love their own era of BVB. Fans with the black line connected from ear to ear across their faces, and fans that have brought out the entire Fallen Angels early days makeup. For Andy Biersack it was probably like looking into a history book of his career looking out into that crowd tonight. The intro builds up and fans explode into screams and drummer CC makes his way to his set, then followed by guitarist Jake Pitts, bassist Lonny Eagleton, and violinist / guitarist Jinx before frontman Andy Biersack takes centre stage. One thing about this band is their stage outfits don’t really change, all black sleeveless battle jackets with black skinny jeans and Andy being the odd one out, with black suit pants, a black vest with a blazer and suspenders but with fake blood at the corner of his mouth. Kicking off the night with a more recent track Crimson Skies, one thing with BVB that everyone has always been brought in by, is Andy’s voice. If you’ve never heard his voice it’s deep as all hell, it’s not forced, just all natural it’s deep and beautifully haunting.

A vocal range that he’s managed to keep up throughout his whole career, this band has always been close and caring for each other and you can see it first hand when you watch them perform live, they have fun and they show the connection they have as a band when they perform.

Going into Coffin, which was released as a single only, shocked me when I saw this was part of the band’s set list. But it’s a banger of a song, I’m here taking pictures with a 16 year old me in the back of my head freaking out with her BVB shirt on, singing along to every single word. Andy’s taken the blazer off now showing all his tattoos that cover his arms. This song starts off so slow before being slammed in with a fast paced riff, this was always a song that you listened to when you needed to show a giant F YOU to those who try and destroy us. This is a show for the outcasts and this is a place to finally feel included.

My personal favourite song of theirs Rebel Love Song starts and everyone has been taken back to 2011.

Andy Biersack has only gotten stronger as a frontman and performer as he’s gotten older, before he had an edgier feel on stage where now he holds everything together with an Elvis like manner which adds fun to his character and his stage presence.

‘Shadows Rise’ featured Guitarist Jinx on the violin and proved to be a really engaging showcase of just how talented this band is. Like I’ve pointed out there were quite a few times that the show had to be stopped because a fan passed out, the show came to a halt during the intro of ‘Shadows Rise’ to help a fan in the crowd, it’s always important to stay hydrated and know your limits during shows, there’s no shame in going further back where there will be more space. But the band and staff at the show handled this perfectly well, and Andy was constantly checking throughout the show on any fan who crowd surfed or just went over the barrier and spoke to everyone of them to make sure they were okay.

The final stretch before the encore included some of their biggest tracks. ‘Perfect Weapon’ when this started playing oh jesus i was screaming it from the top of my lungsI felt emo again! ‘Knives and Pens’ was last played before the encores and you could see the OGs from the fairly newer fans very easily. This was a staple when this song came out, it made you feel at home and it made you feel heard when I was a kid.

Everything slows down for a second as the intro to ‘Lost it All’ begins and you can feel the emotions in the room, as dark memories cloud the minds of those here of a dark moment before it changes as ‘Fallen Angels’ kicks in!.

Ending with their iconic ‘In The End’ i’m pretty sure after this one everyone had lost their voice just singing along, everyone united together and life felt amazing in this moment.

Black Veil Brides are an incredible band, most people focus on how they were at 17 being edgy teenagers but times have changed and they’ve grown up! They’re incredible live and gave an amazing performance!

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