By Olivia Burns
Michigan based Midwest emo band Hot Mulligan brought their headlining tour to Melbourne’s Croxton Bandroom. Along for the ride was US band Free Throw as well as Brisbane’s own Bad Neighbour. It was to be both Hot Mulligan and Free Throw’s long awaited, first visit down under.
First up was Bad Neighbour, I hadn’t yet heard of this band before they were announced as openers. However, after their performance, I’m looking forward to seeing them hopefully jumping on more Australian tours and hopefully a headliner sometime with the solid performance that they gave, they drew the crowd in and had them really paying attention.
As the venue was pretty much filled up, Free Throw got on stage, quite a few fans in the audience already knew a bit of their music, sung along, the band was thrilled that they could come all the way to Australia and have people sing back their lyrics to them. During their song “A Part is Better Than Zero’, they were joined by the lead singer of Hot Mulligan. Free Throw did a great job of getting everyone amped up for the night with a lengthy setlist, playing all their hits and an energetic presence on stage.
After an intermission of people getting more drinks, merch and finding their spot for the rest of the night, Hot Mulligan got on stage and cheers erupted from the crowd that was packed in tightly. They started the night off with “Drink Milk and Run” and by the first song we could already tell the energy between the band and crowd was going to be rowdy. Playing some of the crowds/my personal favourites “SPS” and “No Shoes in the Coffee Shop (or socks)”.
In between songs, lead singer, Nathan “Tades” reminisced on the fact the band had started out only with the goal in mind of being able to make it into basement shows for free, and now they are over the other side of the world, playing their songs to a packed venue. This being their first time in Australia, they mentioned it’s only right to give us a few older tracks, their set list consisted of a great mix of songs over their discography. In the middle of their set is when they pulled out their hit “BKYRD” and you couldn’t help but scream along to it. In between songs, the crowd started chanting something we all know too well, and I’m sure artists from overseas that tour here get pre warned about the “Shoey”, which after some convincing, Nathan obliged and took a shoe from an audience member and threw back a corona. It really is a right of passage here, and to that the audience seemed pleased that they had successfully got a member of the band to take part in the tradition.
As they played through the show, the crowd got even more energetic, from crowd surfing to opening up pits. The lead singer was notably interactive with the crowd and was bouncing from one side of the stage to the other, literally bending over backwards for the fans. Ending the night on “How Do You Know It’s Not Armadillo Shells?” the crowd gave them such a great send off by being the loudest they had all night. The members thanked everyone for coming out and parted ways with their drumsticks and guitar picks with some lucky fans and the night concluded.
This was their first stop on their Australian tour and I have no doubt they will be giving the same great show every single night. We waited for quite some time for them to come to our shores, and hope that it’s not too long till then.
Photo Gallery : Hot Mulligan – Croxton Park Hotel (02.28.2024)
