London, KOKO, February 21 2024
After their exceptionally rich vein of form supporting Bring Me The Horizon, you’d be forgiven for assuming Bad Omens’ recent launch of their ‘Concrete Forever’ era (an extension of their seismic 2022 ‘The Death Of Peace Of Mind’ album), would have been an instant hit with their fanbase.
Indeed, the whirring, A.I.-themed single ‘V.A.N.’ might have added to the band’s recent dominance atop all three positions on Billboard’s Hot Hard Rock Songs Chart, but response online appeared to divide fans and suddenly hinted that the Midas touch they’ve recently enjoyed wasn’t quite turning everything into gold. The reason? Its featured artist, apparently: Poppy.
“Why is she here? Why?! Go away poppy,” bemoans one person on the track’s Instagram teaser; “collab with Spiritbox or someone cool, you’re killing us here,” demands another. In fairness, the overriding sentiment currently on the comments of that teaser post is one defending the artist born Moriah Rose Pereira – but if only to push back against the wave of discontent that her feature had somehow undermined Bad Omens’ credentials.
The fact is, Poppy has long-held the position of the outsider. “We’re on the outside of the outside,” she recently quipped of herself and her ‘Zig’ album’s producer Ali Payami. “If there was a room for the outsiders, we’re sitting in the hallway.” And it’s from this position as the interloper that she’s thrived and even, to some extent, satirised, rising as she did from her YouTube performance art background.
Yet tonight, on the final night of her UK headline tour at London’s venerable KOKO, she was truly centre stage. And here she laid bare why such a position (and, often, such critique) is usually reserved for those fearlessly authentic. Traversing between pop and nu-metal, industrial metal and metalcore she staked her claim.
Kicking things off in the support slot, though, and promising to make us “feral” for the main event, were Wargasm, who were fresh and fired-up following the recent release of their own album, ‘Venom’ (which incidentally arrived on the same day as ‘Zig’ last year, October 27). No strangers to internet discord themselves, the duo of Sam Matlock and Milkie Way acted as mosh pit chiefs, opening up the circle at their command.
It almost bordered condescending for those well-versed in the pits, save for the fact their orders did in fact address the imbalance of their energy and the crowd’s. By their third song ‘Pyro Pyro’, their verve was rightfully rubbing off. And by the time the ferocious, electro-infused ‘D.R.I.L.D.O.’ arrived – via the biting ‘Venom’ and the equally instructive ‘Bang Ya Head’ – the crowd were frenzied, drummer Adam Breeze was down to his boxers, and the KOKO security were hoping the crowd didn’t take up Matlock’s suggestion of breaking the venue’s record for crowd-surfers. (By my estimations, they came nowhere near the reported 100-plus feat).
Yet whilst this punk and metal-induced ferocity – rounded-off by tracks ‘Spit.’ and ‘Do It So Good’ – got us going, Poppy’s approach and aesthetic cut a different hue. The relatively minimal stage design drew the eye to a triangular display of lights at the back, which flickered in-sync with the industrial metal of ‘BLOODMONEY’. As a set opener, this was an opportune choice, given the track – from 2020’s ‘I Disagree’ LP – made metal history when Poppy became the first solo artist to be nominated for Best Metal Performance.
The way Poppy flicked so easily here between the light vocal touch of “What do you believe when nobody is watching? What do you believe?” to the abrasive “Keep telling yourself that you’ve been playing nice” would set a thrilling tone to the gig as a whole.
Wearing a full-length leather jacket, her two pigtails protruding upwards like cat’s ears (resembling her beloved sphynx cat Pi), she burst into heavily distorted ‘Zig’ opener ‘Church Outfit’ before subsequent album track ‘Knockoff’ kicked in – the latter playing on the theme of the artificial versus the real that runs throughout her discography.
By ‘I Disagree’, the jacket was off and the crowd were seemingly under her complete command. The human connection Poppy possesses could be questioned on account of her android interests, which wasn’t helped tonight by the fact a robotic, pre-recorded message did most of the crowd interaction, but the singer’s sheer ability to keep us all under her spell was in no doubt. In fact, seeing her in the flesh showed that her largely emotionless image is merely a foil to prove what really matters in the pursuit of art: passion.
And speaking of contrasts, there were none more glaring than the heavy-metal-cum-power-pop track ‘X’ (the album closer of 2018’s ‘Am I A Girl?’), which in one moment saw a mosh flashback to Wargasm’s incitement, and in another had people’s arms swaying lovingly in unison.
As is customary, Poppy hopped on bass for ‘Hard’ (which first received its live debut during Poppy’s ‘Godless/Goddess’ co-headline tour with PVRIS); and would later help on drums for the opening of ‘Anything Like Me’, which marks yet another tune that switches between raucous rage and a soft, dreamy underbelly.
‘V.A.N.’ was of course given a runout, and if you thought Bad Omens would somehow return the favour from when the pair played it live on tour together, think again: another complaint about this Bad Omens track was that it in fact features very little Bad Omens, and is essentially a solo Poppy release. Nonetheless, her marching feet and dexterously-delivered lines here proved more than a crowd-pleasing moment.
‘Scary Mask’ marked another potential moment for an onstage collab, as you wondered whether Fever333 would stay over in London following their Enter Shikari support slot the previous weekend (although playing France on the same night might have got in the way of that). But once again, Poppy’s individual efforts were more than enough, as she played another track that alternated between heavy metal and airy pop, the refrain “I wear my scary mask when I’m afraid I don’t belong” sung with dazzling beauty.
There would be no need for any such veil here, though, as Poppy showed why she truly does belong. And just as her opening track selection had left an impression, her final two encore tracks were equally apt: ‘Bite Your Teeth’, a track inspired by the Alan Watts quote “trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth”, and a cover of ‘Spit’, originally by newly-announced labelmates (Sumerian Records) and heavy metal legends, Kittie.
If we’d attempted to define the likes of Poppy or her collaborator’s choices so rigidly in the past, we may never have enjoyed some of those we now consider icons of the present.