Bullet For My Valentine Makes a Memorable Return to Terminal 5 NYC After Many Years

On October 12th, 2023- Bullet For My Valentine makes a return to NYC after a long wait of five years with supporting acts Vended and Of Mice and Men.

Vended is an American metal band from Des Moines, Iowa which formed in 2017.This band currently consists of the son of Slipknot’s Corey Taylor, Griffin Taylor (Vocals), Cole Espeland (Guitar), Jeremiah Pugh (Bass), Connor Grodzicki (Guitar) and son of Slipknot’s Shawn Crahan, Simon Crahan (Drums). If you are a fan of Nu-metal band Slipknot, Vended would be just the perfect fit in that criteria considering the members wear masks or have cool face paint designs on their face. Griffin Taylor is basically a clone of his father Corey Taylor, meaning they have similar looks and also have a similar tone in their vocals while screaming.

As soon as the band took the stage, Taylor immediately screamed into his microphone “I WANT TO SEE THIS PIT OPEN UP RIGHT NOW”. Immediate chaos took into place once the first beat dropped. The smiles on everybody’s face was immaculate and astonishing. For an opening band, I would not have suspected there to be so many people screaming the lyrics as well as having the pit being packed. The band constantly kept throwing open water bottles at the crowd and some people got soaked but left them feeling refreshed from the intense heat the fans were facing from moshing. As the water bottles got thrown, some water got on me causing my hair and face to get wet. I found one of my friends later in their set to try to make it towards the pit and all I saw were some people dressed up in goofy costumes such as a lobster onesie. The energy of the crowd and the participation from everybody gave everybody one night to remember. If I had another opportunity to catch Vended live again, I definitely will. Hopefully that time will be them opening up for Slipknot.

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Next to take the stage was mid 2000s metalcore icons Of Mice and Men (OM&M). Formed in 2009 in Costa Mesa, California, OM&M consists of Aaron Pauley (Vocals, Bass), Valentino Arteaga (drums), Alan Ashby (guitars), and Phil Manansala (guitars). The band recently released their highly anticipated album “Tether” on October 6 via Sharptone Records. You can stream the new album here: Tether Album.This tour is the band’s first full-length tour since 2019, so fans were understandably excited, as this was many people’s first time seeing the band in years.

The band opened their set with their 2013 classic “Bones Exposed.” A pit opened up the second the iconic guitar riff began, and the energy continued throughout the rest of their set. The band played a wide variety of songs from throughout their history. Songs included newer fan favorites like “Castaway” off of ‘Tether,’ “Obsolete” off of their 2021 album ‘Echo’ and classic songs “SECOND & SEBRING” and “O.G. Loko.” One of the highlights of the set was when the band played “SECOND & SEBRING,” which is easily their most iconic song. What made this extra special was this tour is the first time the band has played the song live in seven years. The crowd was singing their hearts out and jumping around for the duration of the song, and it was arguably the loudest the crowd was all night.

You could tell that the band was thrilled to see the energy that the crowd was bringing, and they reciprocated that energy while on stage. Pauley’s vocals were on point, and the rest of the band sounded as good as ever. Even after several years of not performing live, the band sounded just as good if not better than their recordings. If I didn’t know any better, I would not have guessed that this was their first tour in years. This set the stage perfectly for the headliner of the night, Bullet for my Valentine.

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It’s the moment everybody’s been waiting for... Bullet For My Valentine has finally made their first show back in New York City in nearly half of a decade since their performance at Irving Plaza for their Gravity tour back in 2018. BFMV is a Welsh quartet with members consisting of Matt Tuck (guitars, lead vocals), Michael Paget (lead guitars), Jamie Mathias (bassist), Jason Bowld (Drums). As the lights went dark, everybody in the crowd began chanting the band’s name. The band started the set with a bang, opening with the high energy song “Knives” off their 2021 self-titled album. Tuck’s first words to the audience were “Let the madness begin,” which energized the crowd and let them know what they were in for for the remainder of their set.

During the third song “Your Betrayal”, while in the photo pit the whole crowd were all jumping and headbanging as soon as Bowld started the song with the memorable drum beat. Out of all my concert photography experience, the amount of crowd surfers that night beat all the other times I’ve witnessed people crowd surfing. It was absolutely bizarre and I was impressed how well security managed to catch everybody who made their way from the back of the pit to the photo pit. I’m honestly surprised that the other photographers and myself did not get kicked in the back of the head.

As we make our way towards the middle of their set, Tuck engages with the crowd and asks “Are you guys warmed up yet? Do you have a little bit more energy to give us? So far you guys have had the most energy we’ve seen on this tour so far”. He then proceeds to play a little guitar riff introduction to "Scream Aim Fire” while screaming the words. The band talked about how they expected the crowd to put their whole energy onto this song by starting it off with a circle pit. As the song continued, I decided to take it upon myself and make my way to the pit. The incredible talent that Paget has with his guitar skills with his memorable solos is absolutely amazing. As he began his solo, that was when all the people in the pit decided to crowd surf at the same time. Tuck goes “Make some noise you f*cking savages.. This is the New York City I remember”. To prepare for the last and final breakdown of the song, the band gives an intermission for the pit to split in half to form a ‘wall of death’ which I contributed to. Tuck gave us all a countdown “1..2..3.. GET THE F*CK UP'' and we all sprinted and tackled one another. It was pretty successful on my end since I didn’t fall on the ground like how others did.

We finally have made it to the encore of the night. The lights went dark and everybody was chanting “Bullet! Bullet!” which transitioned to Tuck walking onto the stage with his guitar and playing the chords to the throwback song "Tears Don’t Fall” but only played the introduction acoustically. Everybody’s inner emo side channeled through the crowd. Once that began, the whole crowd had their flashlights on and their phones out and all their voices lit up the room. After the acoustic introduction to the song, they began playing the original version and I have not seen people jump and mosh so quickly. Hearing this song live definitely touched the hearts of old and new Bullet For My Valentine fans since the song has so much meaning and emotion behind the lyrics. The look on all the members' faces made this night a one to remember.

The band closed the night with the high energy metalcore classic “Waking the Demon.” This was the crowd’s last chance to let out their energy, and they delivered. The song started and a circle pit immediately formed, and it kept going for the remainder of the song. The entire floor became a pit, and people were pushing, dancing, and even doing crab walks throughout the crowd. The band fed off this energy and left everything they had on the stage. The set came to a thrilling conclusion during the final guitar solo, where Tuck called for an even larger pit. This was the perfect conclusion to one of the more energetic sets that you will ever see, and it left BFMV fans both new and old satisfied.