As an intro to this, I just want to say that Brighton's Concorde 2 was the home of one of the most important gigs of the year, and here's why.

Dear Architects,

I wish I could just plainly describe the gig and just say how brilliant you were on your release show at the Concorde 2. I wish I could be detached enough to do that and the more I say it, the more you and everyone else reading this surely wish I could too, because no one wants to read something emotional and sentimental about the band who wanted to make the best metalcore album in the world. 

I had been waited for that gig for ages. There was the wait since me and my brother had bought the tickets, and there were all the hopes I had since I moved to Brighton, almost nine months ago. I just wanted you to do a Brighton show.

And one day I woke up and you announced it.

This show was supprting the release of your latest album, All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us, which is, by the way, excellent and album of the year material for me (and half of the metal planet, at least). I have, though, sadly reached a point where you could perform your shopping list in Norwegian with snippets of your back catalogue translated into Portuguese and I'd still think it was brilliant, so I'm not sure how unbiased I can really be here. I think, though, that you are one of the most important bands in the world. We need you. We need your take on the world. We need your views. We need to go where you are aiming. We just plainly need you.

That Friday was a stupidly hot day and I spent it with my brother, hanging out in Brighton, eating Pringles in Asda's car park, as you do, joking about all the people wearing your merch, saying that we were all going to the same place in the evening. Another thing that made this evening special was sharing it with my brother. He introduced me to music when I was a kid and when I grew up and shaped my very own music taste, all I wanted to do was share it with him. See, I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for my brother. If I fall down, and God knows I have, he is always there to pick me up from the ground. He is always there to understand, to help, to listen. He is just there, constant, stable, always supporting me through everything that comes my way. When I find something that makes me happy and changes my world like you did, I need to share it with him. It's only natural. I have turned him into a firm fan of yours - he drove all the way from France to see you at that Brighton gig and the last time I had him on the phone, he said he was going to try and see you at your Paris gig in October (the problem isn't you, the problem is the law that says his car is too old to be allowed inside Paris, but he seems willing to get fined for you). Seeing you together once again was so special. Our lives aren't perfect - far from it. We struggle and we do our best and we try and we fight and it isn't always perfect. Sharing something like our love for your music, something that is actually perfect, means everything to me. During that one night, we had a little bubble and nothing else mattered and I guess I just want to say thank you for that.

A couple of years ago, I didn't listen to heavy music at all, you know. The heaviest bands I listened to were Four Year Strong and A Day To Remember, and the day I had tried to listen to Bring Me The Horizon, I had to turn Chelsea Smile off because Oli Sykes screaming in my headphones was the most terrifying thing little, innocent me had ever heard. And then, The Blackout happened, early Deaf Havana happened, and, weirdly enough, Bring Me The Horizon's There Is A Hell era happened and I was hooked once and for all. Those weren't good times in my life. I was angry and depressed and I needed to channel all that anger somewhere. And that's how metal happened. Six years later, even when I am no longer depressed, I still get angry at the world, I still get angry at myself, and I still count on heavy music to calm me down or express my feelings or be the soundtracks to my fast paced walks in the streets. My heavy music list has evolved since 2010. And you're right at the top.

Metal also allows me to shout the words to my favourite songs in sweaty venues, because, let's be honest here, nothing can ever beat the power of live music. Heavy music played live is the most intense thing there is and, dare I say, the best thing since sliced bread. When the guitars are saturated and the drums beat in your chest and the vocals resonate throughout the entire building, that's when I come alive. The intense live music thing, you do it better than most. You do it so well I barely comprehend it. When I think of the chaos and the uproar in the Concorde when you play These Colours Don't Run and nine hundred people shout "You had it all, you fucking pigs", when I think of the crowd when Naysayer happened, when I think of the last hurrah as Gravedigger gets played, when I think of the reaction during the new songs - that's what I mean when I say you do live music better than most. You know how to play a show, you know how to deliver, you just know. It looks natural, it looks easy. And that's what I want, you know. I don't want it to look forced. I want it to look genuine.

Another reason why you are important in my life is because you have helped open my mind to what is going on in the world. I'm not being original here, but you are the reason why I started supporting Sea Shepherd and, as a consequence, educate myself further on all environmental matters (though I have grown up in a fairly environmentally aware household). You are also the reason why I have research vegetarianism and the consequences of meat consumption on the world and, to an extent, the reason why I have become a vegetarian. Those were important changes in my life, you know, and they make me feel like I have become a better person. You are not just there to make me happy and channel my anger as I walk through North Laine like I am the protagonist of an angry music video, you are also one of the reasons why I have decided to better myself and I feel like it needed to be celebrated. You are one of the biggest inspirations and influences in my life. You have encouraged me to take a stand, to research, to grow as a human, to take the world around me into account in a different way, a more active way. When, on stage, you tell us about Sea Shepherd and why the oceans are important to our survival, I hope others feel the same way I have, I hope others find in you the inspiration I have.

When you say that music unites people and that if I turn to the person next to me, we already have something in common and we can start a conversation, I agree, and I am brought to tears. Music has given me a big, fat chunk of what I have in my life right now - friends, the will to travel, a new place where I wanted to start a life, beliefs, a social conscience. It's shaped me as a person - a good one, I hope.

When the crowd is, hands down, one of the best crowds I have ever had the pleasure to share a gig with, it hits me like a brick in the face. This is why I love live music. This is what I live for. This is the band who has changed my life. This is something I am lucky enough to share with my favourite human in the world. This is everything. And maybe you are everything, too. As I often say, I find myself speechless a lot for someone who would kill to be a writer, and I wish I had more words to express all my love and gratitude for you. I hope those are enough. 

Thank you for everything.