By Olivia Burns
Hot Milk brought their A Call To The Void headline show to the Gaso in Melbourne, while here in Australia supporting the legends that are the Foo Fighters. However, lucky fans were able to witness Hot Milk in the small intimate venue, with local band Belle Haven as the support act.
It was a hot afternoon and the sun was streaming down into the open roof venue and people were eagerly lining up to get inside. People were either darting to get to their spot in front of the stage or the line for merch.
Belle Haven was up on stage to warm up the crowd, and warm up the crowd they did. Between the great energy on stage, to the interaction with the crowd, even if you didn’t know all of their music, they put on such a great show. Their songs “Take Your Pill” and newest track “Hard Stare, Soft Touch” were standouts for me. Being a prevalent band within the scene here in Melbourne, I’m definitely keen to catch them next time they’re playing live.
The crowd only packed in tighter, getting as close as they could to the stage in anticipation for the fact Hot Milk were going to be right there in front of them, no barrier to separate them.
The music that had been playing tunes at random during the break came to a stop and loud intro music started playing. Next thing we know, they are making their entrance up on stage, where they were being warmly welcomed with the cheers from the crowd. They started their intro song of “WELCOME TO THE…” before smoothly transitioning into their song “HORROR SHOW”. It quickly got so hot and sweaty in the venue, everyone packed tightly in, jumping around, and if it was hot for us, we can only imagine how hot it would’ve been for the band members, being from the UK. However, lead singer Han remedied this by pouring her bottle of water all over her head trying to cool herself down for a brief moment.
They played through their setlist, which was curated of most tracks off of their latest two records. There were very few moments where any of the band members were still, they were either jumping from one side of the stage to the other, having guitar battles between each other or getting amongst the crowd.
The crowd listened intently as Han introduced the following song, exclaiming that this one has meant a lot to her personally and that she loves that so many people have been able to resonate with it, this song being “BREATHING UNDERWATER” and boy did it hit even more live, everyone with their hands in the air singing along. As the bridge came around, the band fell silent and left it up to their fans to sing the words and they were screaming them at the top of their lungs, like they felt every single word and once the song ended, the band smiled between each other taking it all in.
They picked up the tone of the night again, and one lucky fan, Anthony, was invited on stage to sing “Candy Coated Lies” with them, and nailed it. They played a couple more songs, and then exited the stage. Of course we knew they were going to come back up, but the crowd gave them what they wanted and chanted for an encore. A couple of minutes went by and they reappeared on stage, to finish off the night with their song “Glass Spiders”, clearly a crowd favourite, making sure they were giving the band a great send off.
The song came to an end and they threw out their drumsticks and picks and as they were saying goodbye, Tom gestured to the crowd and before we knew it he had yelled “to the bar” and had jumped onto the willing people that were holding him up, crowd surfing him to the back of the room while the others slowly made their way off stage.
It was a show full of nonstop chaotic energy, with emotional points from the Manchester based band. The interaction between the band and crowd, the way the fans responded to them and gave their all, it was such a great show to witness and you can definitely see why they were chosen to play at huge arenas with Foo Fighters, we were just lucky enough to see them play at an intimate venue.
