Oli Sykes might still have no idea, even now, that the "audience member" he randomly pulled onstage was actually the frontman of another band.
On August 14th, about two-thirds through Bring Me The Horizon's headline set on the fourth day of Sziget Festival in Budapest, the onstage virtual character Eve delivered her usual warning that the end of the world was near, calling for a "volunteer" from the crowd to help the band — declaring, as she always does, that humanity's fate "rests in this person's hands." Sykes scanned the crowd, spotted someone pushing their way forward, casually remarked "he's already halfway there," and called them up onstage.
The person chosen was Barni Kókai, frontman of Budapest deathcore band The Southern Oracle. It's unclear whether Sykes was aware of this at the time, but what happened next was more compelling than any scripted moment could be: once onstage, Kókai delivered a full performance of BMTH's 2006 track "Pray For Plagues" — the opening song off their debut album *Count Your Blessings*, and the first time it had been played on this tour run.
The Southern Oracle's drummer Balint Milei shared the clip on his Instagram Story, writing: "That's our singer, up there on stage with fucking Bring Me The Horizon. So damn proud of you, brother." The Southern Oracle formed in Szeged back in 2009, originally under the name Slaughter At The Engagement Party. The band has released six albums to date, with their latest, *HUNT WHAT YOU FEAR*, dropping this past December.
The show itself leaned heavily into spectacle: red velvet-draped platforms, relentless pyro effects, and screens projecting demonic overlays onto Sykes' face and those of the crowd. The setlist spanned eras, running from "Dehumanized" (its tour debut) and "DArkSide," through "Kingslayer," all the way to encores of "Doomed" and "Throne."
The return of "Pray For Plagues" wasn't just a coincidence. Just last month, BMTH performed *Count Your Blessings* in full twice at Manchester's BEC Arena — including their first-ever complete run-through of the album — and released a re-recorded version of the record this past June. Sykes explained at the time: "This record can't sound like what the band is doing now — it has to be the best possible version of that 2006 sound." So on the night an unsuspecting fellow frontman got pulled into the mix, it ended up dovetailing, almost fittingly, with the very origin point the band has been revisiting all along.
Day four of Sziget Festival also featured sets from Nia Archives, Sigrid, Rose Gray, Skepta, and Peggy Gou, while the festival's closing night is set to headline with Jorja Smith, Zimmer90, Skrillex, and Soulwax.
