Oli Sykes brings Will Ramos onstage at Hellfest to sing “Antivist” with BMTH

Bring Me The Horizon didn’t just headline Hellfest on June 18, they changed the mechanics of the show. At the French metal festival, BMTH brought Lorna Shore’s Will Ramos onstage to sing “Antivist,” with Ramos taking the lead vocals and Oli Sykes handling backing vocals.

This is the kind of moment that spreads instantly because it’s specific and earned. The Sheffield band is known for inviting a fan from the audience to perform vocals alongside Sykes at each show, but at Hellfest Sykes said he was bringing a fan he selected ahead of time, then jokingly told the crowd, “Be nice to him, even if he’s shit, alright?” Ramos then stepped up and they delivered a blistering rendition of the 2013 track.

If you’re tracking why certain scenes grow while others stall, notice what BMTH did here. The band opened with a familiar structure, a 10-song chunk of their “Sempiternal” material inside a 15-track setlist, and anchored that with a widely recognized song. Then they swapped the usual “fan picked on the spot” dynamic for a prestige crossover with a peer from a different part of the metal ecosystem. The result is still participatory, but the “invite” now signals rank: this is not only about giving fans a moment, it is also about collapsing distance between heavy sub-genres.

The Hellfest context matters. BMTH headlined the festival for the first time, after previously performing there in 2009, 2016, and 2022, which suggests they have been building adjacency for years before pulling this kind of high-profile collaboration. The rest of Hellfest ran through the rest of last week with other headline performances: Iron Maiden on Friday (June 19), Limp Bizkit on Saturday (20), and The Offspring on Sunday (21). BMTH also played Belgium’s Graspop Metal Meeting over the weekend.

All of that calendar positioning is about momentum. BMTH are now gearing up for Outbreak Festival 2026 at Manchester’s BEC Arena, taking place on Friday July 10 and Saturday June 11. The two shows will include a limited edition run of merchandise, and support comes from Static Dress, Dying Wish, Rolo Tomassi, Heriot, Car Underwater and Still In Love. That lineup design is not just “more bands,” it is a segmentation strategy: it keeps the audience within the broader metal umbrella while still pointing toward emerging names.

The stakes get even clearer when you look at what BMTH plan to do at those Outbreak shows. They will perform their 2006 debut album, “Count Your Blessings,” in full to celebrate its 20th anniversary. They are also releasing a 20th anniversary “reactivated” re-recording of the LP on July 10. The band described the re-recording as “recontextualisation” of the original release, revisiting and reworking the original tracklist so it is “sharper, heavier, and more vital than ever.” While the tracklist is mostly the same as the original, “Liquor & Lost Love” will appear under its original working title, “Dragon Slaying.”

And this is where the Hellfest “Antivist” move connects to broader second-order effects. BMTH are simultaneously leaning into legacy (playing “Count Your Blessings” in full), into continuity with the present (re-recording with a “recontextualisation” framing), and into cross-scene credibility (bringing Will Ramos onstage). That combination tends to do two things at once: it reassures older fans that the band respects its roots, and it gives newer fans a reason to believe the band’s current direction can coexist with the harshest edges of modern extreme vocals.

There is also a media logic in play. The story notes that ahead of inviting Ramos to the stage, Oli Sykes opened up about why BMTH invite fans to sing with them on stage, saying the same experience happened to him when he was a teenager watching Funeral For A Friend. In other words, the fan participation tradition is not random spectacle. It is a lived origin story, which makes it easier for audiences to share because it feels like a ritual rather than a gimmick.

The strategic takeaway for peers and partners is straightforward: when BMTH collapses the usual boundary between “fan moment” and “artist moment,” they get social spread, scene credibility, and narrative cohesion all at once. For executives and boards in music, festivals, and creator-driven brands, that is the real KPI behind a single stage appearance. If you are building audiences, you can’t just tour. You have to orchestrate moments that look unrepeatable, then package them into a longer plan, like BMTH is doing with Outbreak Festival 2026 and the “reactivated” re-recording timeline.

And for fans, the next question is irresistible: if BMTH is pulling Will Ramos into “Antivist” at Hellfest, what does that mean for the band’s future guest strategy across major festivals? The internet is already asking, including speculation in posts about who could be invited to Rock In Rio. Whatever the answer, the June 18 Hellfest collaboration made one thing unambiguous: BMTH are not treating extremes as a side quest. They are bringing them center stage.