Bring Me The Horizon Trash Coldplay’s Table At The 2016 NME Awards

People, it’s ON: the rumoured feud between Bring Me The Horizon and Coldplay stepped up to the next level at this year’s NME Awards, when Oli Sykes decided to perform – in the middle of Coldplay’s table. 

Sending glasses and wine bottles flying during BMTH’s performance of ‘Happy Song’, Oli strolled off the stage, used Chris Martin’s chair to hop onto the table where Coldplay were sitting, before it collapsed and he jumped off, making a beeline for the pit of fans watching the show.

While guests at the awards show looked bemused – including Coldplay, who looked like they didn’t know what the hell just happened, with guitarist Johnny Buckland having to dive out of the way  – fans and photographers loved it, swarming Oli as he and BMTH belted the rest of the lead single from their 2015 album, That’s The Spirit. 

Afterwards, Chris Martin allegedly told reporters that he had never heard of Bring Me The Horizon before that night, but that he thought Oli’s impromptu table-crashing “was great, very rock n roll.”

Luckily YouTuber Zoe London was on hand to capture the whole incident – watch her video below: 

Oli’s table dancing comes off the back of last year’s controversy surrounding Coldplay’s A Head Full Of Dreams cover art, which uses the same ‘flower of life’ symbol featured on BMTH’s huge 2012 album, Sempiternal. When Coldplay posted their new album art, Oli Sykes tweeted “@coldplay Jackin our steez hard” and told the NME that Chris Martin and co. must have been aware of his band’s strong association with the symbol.

“At the end of the day it’s not our symbol, it’s a very old symbol. They might not have known at first, but obviously if you Google ‘flower of life’ the first thing that comes up is ‘Bring Me The Horizon—Sempiternal,’ it’s like, if you Google the images, someone’s gonna have said something to them, so whether it was intentional or not, it is the same,” he said in 2015. 

Whether Chris Martin knew about Bring Me The Horizon or not last year, he most definitely does now.

UPDATE: Speaking to NME after the performance keyboardist Jordan Fish said: "I don't think [Oli] was aiming for Coldplay. It was just whoever was nearest, it [just] happened to be Coldplay".

Sykes himself explained: "I had no sound in my ears so I thought 'Well, there might be sound out there.' There weren't sound out there so when I came back there was a table, which I got on. There wasn't any sound on there, but it was a bit more energetic up there. It was in no way a protest against Coldplay."

By Georgina Langford-Biss