LIVE REVIEW: Hot Mulligan @ O2 Kentish Town Forum, London

A late summer heatwave is baking the capital, temperatures refusing to dip below the thirties even in the evening. Speaking of things in their thirties, there’s a particular brand of aging millennial filling the venue tonight, one that HOT MULLIGAN and support SPANISH LOVE SONGS‘ existentialist dread speaks to. The two bands exist on a similar emotional spectrum channelling the bleakness of modern life through the filter of fragile, biting, sometimes defeated lyricism and anthemic songwriting. They’re the perfect touring companions, and the mostly sold out run of shows together reflects that.

SPANISH LOVE SONGS‘ walk on song sounds for all the world like a WWE entrance theme, but from the second Dylan Slocum intones the iconic “on any given day, I’m a six of ten” from Routine Pain, the band are in full command of the crowd. They follow it with the distraught, anthemic Clean-Up Crew from this year’s excellent No Joy, two fist-pumping odes to the sense of creeping dread and that life is ultimately pointless.

Focusing almost entirely on their last two albums is understandable given both the limited time of a support slot and the fact that 2021’s Brave Faces Everyone might be one of the finest alternative albums of the past five or more years. From the slow burn of Pendulum to the one-two, though odd ordering of Losers 2 into Losers, the band weave tales of existentialism and the desire to find some moment of joy of laughter even in the bleakest of circumstances. It culminates in the emotional bloodletting of Brave Faces, Everyone that ensures that there’s damp eyes from more than just the horrific humidity inside. 

Rating: 9/10

Deafening cheers erupt as soon as the lights go down for HOT MULLIGAN before the quintet have played a note, and the enthusiasm stays sky high as they amble on before firing out OG Bule Sky and *Equip Sunglasses* in quick succession. The crowd sing back both the lyrics and the guitar licks of the bouncy pop-punk. Despite being so uptempo, the lyrics occupy that rich emotional vein of angst and existentialist musings, making them intensely relatable for not only the (many, many) millennials in the room but also their younger Gen-Z fanbase. “Welcome to the Why Would I Watch tour,” grins vocalist Nathan Sanville towards the start of their set, as the band prepare to prove exactly why you should be watching them. Exuberant musically but lyrically far more introspective or bleak, the ‘post-emo’ tag they’ve occasionally been saddled with starts to make more sense.

The crowd are putty in their hands too, Sanville‘s request the crowd help him out to a “shot voice” eagerly obeyed. There’s no sign of tiredness in his voice though, nor his four bandmates as they bounce from the anthemic It’s a Family Movie She Hates Her Dad to How Do You Know It’s Not Armadillo Shells? with the kind of energy you’d expect of a band only just starting a tour rather than several dates in. With jabs at the royals (“fuck those royals” goes down a storm) to praising Slam Dunk and playing their redemption song for missing it (The Soundtrack To Missing a Slam Dunk, unsurprisingly), HOT MULLIGAN are all tongue in cheek, ironic song titles and huge singalongs, with the crowd movement even more impressive given the awful, oppressive humidity. They’ve definitely redeemed themselves for missing Slam Dunk now. 

Rating: 9/10

Check out our photo gallery of the night’s action in London from Ciara Wilkinson Media here: 

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