Motionless in White returned to Glasgow to kick off their Afraid of the Dark tour at their biggest ever Scotland show at the OVO Hydro. Playing this venue is a huge achievement for the band, as their last Scottish performance was played to a sold-out crowd at the O2 Academy in 2025, which has a capacity of 2,500 people. To put this number into perspective, the Hydro has a full standing and seated capacity of 14,300, giving the band potential to perform to a crowd over five times the size of their last show here!
The bands selected for this highly anticipated tour were perfect in my opinion, serving the crowd heavy metalcore with up-and-coming stars Make Them Suffer and post-hardcore synth jams with Dayseeker. This combination of heavy, mosh-inducing sound with ethereal, atmospheric slow jams made for a perfect set-up, representing all the genres that Motionless in White have explored through their eighteen years of music production and performance.
Our first opening band of the night was Make Them Suffer, an Australian-based band from Perth that I have had the pleasure of viewing four times now. Each and every time I have seen them, they have improved and surprised me through their performance and crowd interaction, as well as their meticulous setlist curation. Their stage intro consisted of a medieval tavern-like fiddle glitching into the ending of what seemed like an industrial underground rave, before they appeared to play their most recognised hit, “Ghost of Me”. This ignited fans of their new and old music into an eruption of moshing, jumping, and screaming. This energy was upheld throughout their entire set by artist and crowd alike.
I can only imagine what this crowd support and feedback felt like for the band, with their last Scottish gig being at the iconic, intimate Glasgow venue Slay. I have to say, staying seated for this set was incredibly hard for me, as there was nothing more I wanted than to be in that pit. They continued to play songs off their newest record, Make Them Suffer, such as “Epitaph”, “Oscillator”, and “Mana God”, while also giving older fans the pleasure of hearing songs from their album How to Survive a Funeral. This was a great display of the band’s understanding of their genre and the versatility of metalcore. Although this band was the first opener of the night, their liveliness and excitement oozed throughout their thirty-minute slot, warming the crowd up for our evening’s headliners.
After a brief interval, our second support band Dayseeker donned the stage, jumping straight into the most played song from their new album Creature in the Black Night, “Pale Moonlight”. This song acted as a perfect introduction to the band and their unique sound, which I can only closely think to describe as the perfect blend of Bad Omens and Sleep Token. Coming from California, I can vouch that although they didn’t bring the West Coast weather with them, they did bring the atmosphere. It felt like a summer evening, driving down a country road with your best mates, music blasting from your speakers and making the best memories.
Visuals from their new album played in the background with matching lighting, brightening up a sea of very obvious fans wearing tour merch and screaming the lyrics back to vocalist Rory Rodriguez. With a slightly longer set time than their predecessors, Dayseeker were able to play songs from a few more of their earlier releases, with fan favourites being “Burial Plot” and “Sleeptalk” from their 2019 album by the same name. Torch lights were on, hands were swayed, mosh pits were had, and headbanging was aplenty. Their eight-year career is obvious in the way their music can control a crowd. Having never seen Dayseeker live before, I can sincerely say they will be on my radar for a long time after this show-stopping performance.
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Kings of the metalcore scene Motionless in White started their show in possibly the most chaotically perfect way. Anyone who is chronically online knew exactly who had blessed their visuals: TikTok famous cat Ethel, also known as the “uiia i uiiia” cat, remixed into a dubstep beat. Captured flying through space, it faded out to welcome our Pennsylvanian five-piece to the stage. They opened with track number one, “Meltdown”, from the chart-topping album Scoring the End of the World. Of course, in true MIW style, fire was used—very fittingly for the song’s title and for how my face felt!
This didn’t cease after the opener; if anything, it grew with The Cherry Bombs joining in, using flamethrower-adjacent machines and angle-grinders on their crotches to shower the members in sparks. Having seen them perform at the O2 Academy last year, it feels like their stage show was made for an arena tour, and I’m so glad that’s what we received. Frontman Chris made a speech halfway through the show describing the logistics of being an American band trying to break through into the European music industry. Forever yearning to bring the scale of shows they have in the US to us here, they said “fuck it” and made the leap of booking arena tours, and oh boy, did it pay off.
The band made the ballsy decision to play a song never before played in Europe from their first album Creatures. While most people expected an A-list track, we were all thrown off with the choice of “City Lights”. It’s definitely a song I never would have expected them to play this far along in their career, but I was overjoyed as it’s one of my favourites of their early songs. They also played another song they haven’t played to a UK audience in at least ten years, “America”. I feel this was an important choice given the current political climate. The delivery of 14,000 people screaming out “A.M.E.R.I.C.A” in the chorus felt like a massive release of emotion. The band also displayed a progressive pride flag within their set, showing solidarity and support for the community and standing against hate.
As usual at big venues, the show did not always go as planned. The music was stopped multiple times for injured members of the crowd, which both the band and security at the Hydro dealt with promptly and in the perfect manner. But the show must go on, and it did once all incidents had been dealt with. Speaking of manners, the band’s final song was “Eternally Yours”, where both Motionless in White and The Cherry Bombs gave roses to members of the crowd while performing one of the best love songs in the genre effortlessly. It brought couples together and singles to lonely tears, but I think everyone can agree we all long for a love like this song describes.
I’ve been listening to Motionless in White since I was an angsty teenager and I’m now an angsty adult, but time has traversed the band’s sound to make me feel just like I did back in my school days. This brings a sense of nostalgia for the past but also a longing for the future. Whatever comes after this, I think I speak for all fans when I say this show will be hard to top. It was genuinely one of the most phenomenal performances I have ever had the luxury of viewing!
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Photos by Skull Lens
