Live review: Black Veil Brides and Creeper, London OVO Arena Wembley

“Things might get pretty spooky around here,” Creeper’s acerbic vampire familiar Darcia warns the crowd at tonight’s Wembley spectacular. “Don’t lose your heads.”

There’s a fun irony to this when, the last time Creeper played a one-off show in London, frontman William Von Ghould quite literally lost his head in a spectacular set-piece at the Roundhouse. Almost two years later, there’s even more to get excited about.

Fresh from a U.S. jaunt, they stuff the members of Black Veil Brides in their suitcases for an outrageous pre-Halloween Devil's Night show, also serving as a reunion on the other side of the Atlantic from where they toured together in 2016. As expected, it's a night that comes in any colour, so long as it's black.

In a deviation from the usual, tonight’s opener does not have a single guitar onstage. In fact, they’ve got no instruments at all. The majestic Choir Noir’s power comes entirely from their voices as they hauntingly reimagine metal songs like they’ve never been heard before, with particularly stunning renditions of Deftones’ Minerva and Gojira’s Silvera.

It’s a different shade of spooky from what follows when Creeper rock up – when jets of flame appear the second Ian Miles strikes his guitar strings in Further Than Forever, it’s obvious that they’re not fucking about.

“Wembley, let me hear you!” crows Will, spreading his arms triumphantly before they play the stomping Lovers Led Astray. Hearing this sentence feels like justice being done. In an immaculate setlist loaded with bangers (and they don’t get enough credit for just how many they have), at their best they’re absolutely wondrous – the back half of The Ballad Of Spook And Mercy commands the feeling of the gates of heaven opening, while the ever-devoted crowd sings Down Below without any prompting.

The two proper heart-stopping moments come later – the first is an awe-inspiring rare-ish airing of Astral Projection as a nostalgic throwback to where Creeper started building their sound from (and it works beautifully in a huge room). The second is the first-ever performance of More Than Death, a lighters-in-air moment given huge emotional heft when it’s dedicated to Will’s mum’s friend Steve, whose funeral he attended just two days ago. Ultimately, as ambitious as it is for them to play here, performance-wise it doesn’t feel premature at all.

If Creeper are Phantom Of The Opera, then BVB are a Marvel movie. Their 90-minute turn feels slicker and shinier – veterans of similarly-sized spaces – with a flashier, more extensive lighting set-up than their British compatriots. Offering less sentimentality and more swagger, they dart from present-day bangers such as the feverish Bleeders and mighty Crimson Sky to golden oldies Perfect Weapon and Knives And Pens with just as much fervour from both them and the crowd.

There are a couple of head-scratching moments. Deep cuts might be all the rage, but setlist curveball New Religion is a tad too scrappy to blossom in this setting. Later, there’s a interlude that smashes together a drum solo, a trumpet solo and then a drum solo to EDM, which is genuinely bizarre. (“Why did they become Skrillex for a second?” one punter asks.)

Still, they’re truly at their best for a rapturous encore of Lost It All (for which they bring out Lilith Czar, who features on the original song), Fallen Angels and In The End. These moments affirm that Black Veil Brides are still a potent force when they hit their mark.

Two bands too ghoul for school, one graveyard smash.

Read this next:

• Black Veil Brides: “We’re really enjoying the fact that we’ve shared our adult lives together. And we continue to do it”
  
• Creeper’s William Von Ghould: “I think it’s the most incredible thing, to be an outsider”
• Black Veil Brides: “Our fans have supported us for so long that we’re able to do exactly what we want”