Sports Team - Live Review

It's September, which means the summer festival season is over, and return to dark, sweaty rooms for gigging, and it feels great! Although I do miss the super sharp photos from being outdoors, it's nice to get down and dirty with music again and experience raw grass root intimacy.

Guiding us back into gigging season is Sports Team, who have built their following the old-fashioned way, one sweaty room at a time. Formed in Cambridge and now based around London, the band have gone from a Mercury Prize nomination for debut album Deep Down Happy (2020) to Boys These Days (2025), which reached No 1 on the Official Record Store Chart. Their latest single, 'Billy', is out now, and this date at The Bullingdon Oxford date was part of the run of shows building up to their DIY Alive headline slot.

Sports Team's set had plenty of crowd energy from the start. At one point Alex Rice asked who had come along from freshers, a nod to the new university term that had only just begun. During 'The Drop' the first crowd surfers went over the heads of the crowd, and the room only got livelier from there.

Alex is a good host between songs. Before 'I'm in Love (Subaru)' he explained that the BBC wouldn't play the track to begin with because of the advertising, which gave the song a bit of backstory.

He also let everyone know that guitarist Henry Young is away in France having a baby, and mentioned that Ben's headphones don't actually work and that Ben had recently been dumped by his girlfriend.

The new song 'Tequila Rose' was already being sung back loudly, which is a good sign for a track that's still so new. The setlist ran through plenty of ground, opening with 'The Game' and 'Happy (God's Own Country)' and closing with 'Here's the Thing', 'Kutcher' and 'Stanton'. In between came 'Palomino', 'The Drop', 'Bang Bang Bang', 'Here It Comes Again', 'I'm in Love (Subaru)', 'M5', 'Fishing', 'Camel Crew', 'Billy' and 'Tequila Rose'.

A great show to get back into gigging season.

Manchester four-piece Porij supported. Their lead singer, Scout Moore, mentioned that the band aren't really an indie band, which is a fair point given their synth-heavy, dance-leaning sound. They performed a cover of The Black Eyed Peas' 'Pump It' during their set. Between songs, Scout talked about James, who has played the Bullingdon before, and joked about him wearing double corduroy to try and fit in.