Hot Mulligan bring their new album to London’s Roundhouse
The band brought ‘The Sound a Body Makes When It’s Still’ to the capital.
Photo: Press
Hot Mulligan delivers what can only be described as sheer insanity to the roundhouse, a pop-punk fan’s wet dream of a show with the perfect blend of wall-to-wall high-impact energy with the soft, melancholic sound when it was time to slow it down. A gig with an outrageous amount of personality and. with this being Hot Mulligan’s biggest headline show in London, they really brought it.
The Midwest Emo act should be credited with ending seasonal affective disorder for 2026 with this show for me and many of the attending audience. They kicked off with Moving to Bed Bug Island, which was the intro song on their most recent album release, The Sound the Body Makes When It’s Still, where it was very clear that the crowd were here to play along and set the audience’s position for the whole show. The crowd seemed to sing along to every word and the sombre start really let the room connect with the music — I’m sure from this point, Hot Mulligan knew they were in for a good show.
From here it was pedal to the metal; the all killer, no filler setlist kicked into gear with And A Big Load and It Smells Like Fudge Axe Spray In Here and, like that, the crowd were moshing, not like they needed much invitation. Tades Sanville — the lead singer of Hot Mulligan — did it anyway, smartly pitting a London crowd against their New York show. Ask any Brit, and they have to be the best, especially against the lot across the Atlantic. The crowd brought into it, and they just kept going up gear by gear, in volume and energy. This was masterful from Tades and, from this point, they really had the crowd on strings.
The hits from the new album kept coming, with Bon Jonah and Island in the Sun, cementing the album as an all-timer; an album you can tell that Hot Mulligan are so proud of putting out. The Sound the Body Makes When It’s Still medley ended with the greatest name for a song of all time: Monica Lewinskibidi.
A special mention has to be made for How Do You Know It’s Not Armadillo Shells?, the first song that was not a part of the new album. Tades set this up by saying, “We are now gonna play some old stuff now.” The crowd cheered and Tades playfully told them, “Fuck you”. Again, the quality banter with the crowd showed throughout, as they spent the night being played by the puppet master. The banter transformed into a wonderful performance — as soon as the first note hit, the crowd took over.
Everyone in attendance were singing their hearts out, hands displayed in the air; everyone’s voices would no doubt have been sore the next day. This was genuinely a memory I will not forget, as this, to me, is why people should experience live music for the sheer goosebumps on my arm at the time and even when I think about it now.
Some other highlights — even though every song was a banger — include Drink Milk and Run, Feal Like Crab and Featuring Mark Hoppus. These are already some of my favourite Hot Mulligan tracks, and seeing these live solidified this. They also played Prototheme, which is the walkout song made for AEW Wrestler Kyle Fletcher. This was met with “A E Dub” chants in the crowd around me and, as an AEW fan myself, it was cool to hear.
Also, as part of the set, they played the new release I Don’t Think It’s the Right Time for Emojis, a song they only just released last month. It was really cool to see the way it melds perfectly with their established music during the set.
As we got to the encore, we were treated to a You’ll be Fine double header, starting with the sing-along anthem for all your emo tendencies, BCKYRD, where the crowd lovingly embraced the song, which was the calm before the storm as Hot Mulligan closed the show with Equip Sunglasses. This was pure bedlam, sheer pandemonium. Everywhere you looked, you saw a crowd surfer, and mosh pits that seemed to keep getting bigger — this is undeniably how you close off a set.
Overall, this was just perfection. It’s one of the best gigs I have ever been to; the unmatched energy from start to end, the firepower of the setlist and the masterful crowd play from the band. From one second, bringing out the emotion of angst and depression, to the upbeat, two-step escapism that Hot Mulligan was able to provide. I do not need therapy; I just need more Hot Mulligan concerts.
