O2 Forum Kentish Town, 25th November 2024
If there’s one thing Sports Team fans have come to expect from them, it’s the unexpected. From printing fans’ tweets on t-shirts to reposting snarky comments about them on social media to asking fans to go to their afterparties dressed like Jeremy Clarkson, there’s very little Sports Team could do at this point to surprise their fans. But tonight’s show proves the London indie six-piece still have enough mayhem to go around. For instance, before the show even starts, they have already announced the winner of an Alex Rice lookalike contest at the pub next door. Alex Rice, of course, is Sports Team’s infamously chaotic lead singer.
Once the lookalike competition is well and truly done, a motley crowd huddles around the stage at London’s O2 Forum Kentish Town. Those not dressed like Jeremy Clarkson for the afterparty wear an array of Sports Team t-shirts. In the time it takes me to walk from the door to the front of the stage, I spot a shirt with some handwritten text messages about the band not being able to print branded tea towels in time to sell them and another with a hand-drawn Three Lions logo on it with ‘Sports Team’ printed underneath. I myself am wearing one with a picture of Rice and The 1975 frontman Matty Healy on the front saying “They r so sexy but not in a Harry Styles perfect man type way like in a slimy weird definitely stink way” on the back.
So when the band saunter on stage and launch into ‘Camel Crew’, the crowd is ready for whatever bizarre antics await. Before the first note has even been played, the moshpits have already started, and best believe the crowd won’t slow down until the show is done. People have come to mosh and jump, and whatever song Sports Team play simply becomes the soundtrack to do so. After ‘Camel Crew’, ‘Happy (God’s Own Country)’ and ‘The Game’ receive an equally effusive welcome. Moshpits and energy aside, it’s also impossible not to fall in love with the band themselves. Led by Rice, playing the role of an egotistical, larger-than-life rockstar, their coolness is infectious. While they know when not to take themselves too seriously, they also know how to put on a stellar rock show.
Despite fans not knowing the words, the still-unreleased track ‘Bang Bang Bang’ receives endearing whoops and cheers as people clap along. ‘The Drop’, which comes next, cranks the energy back up to 100%. Even the jazzy ‘I’m in Love (Subaru)’ is turned up a notch when played live. As arms flail and feet move, the band occasionally look up in awe, taking in the crowd’s euphoria.
Although the show has been relatively tame until now, that is all about to change. Much to security’s horror, the band demand the crowd make a human pyramid – something they had explicitly been asked not to do after doing so in Glasgow and Nottingham a few nights prior. And although the pyramids don’t entirely take form, the damage has been done, meaning that when the band start playing ‘Lander’, the crowd is riled up and ready. A sea of people sway from left to right in one synchronised movement as the soles of feet skim the surface of the floor below.
“When you’re pushing 30,” Rice starts, “and you’re still in a band, there are two types of band you can be in. One is the ‘cool’ kind, and the other is the ‘not-so-cool’ kind. This right here,” he says, pointing at the worshipping crowd below, “pushes us into the ‘cool’ category.”
As his comment is met with a unanimous roar, the crowd only gets even more excited. The band themselves play on, with older songs ‘Kutcher’ and ‘Winter Nets’ making an appearance.
However, the show’s final stretch is where Sports Team shine the brightest. They feed off the energy below as the crowd belts every lyric to ‘Condensation’, ‘M5’, and ‘Fishing’. It is at this point when, as if on cue, fans drop down to make an unreasonably large rowing pit that takes up a good portion of the show’s stalls, much to security’s bemusement.
When it’s time for the encore, a bizarre pod-like contraption made from tissue and hula hoops appears on stage. In true Sports Team fashion, Rice bursts out from the pod and, in a fit of laughter, goes straight into ‘Here’s the Thing’ with the rest of the band spilling out from backstage to revel in the sheer absurdity of the situation. ‘Stanton’ gives the crowd and the band one last chance to give it their all, and if you’re in the first five or so rows, it also allows you to hold up Rice as he crowd surfs, becoming one with the fans.
Seeing Sports Team live makes it easy to see why they are as popular as they are – while their lyrics often consist of biting critiques of late-stage capitalism and society, their shows are an entirely different kettle of fish. Both Sports Team and their fans know how to have fun, and in a world heading towards an uncertain future, sometimes having a space to let loose, wear a silly t-shirt, and laugh at the absurdity of it all is precisely the antidote the world needs.
Words and images: Sophie Flint Vázquez, no use without permission
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