Known for pulling dance music away from its four-on-the-floor foundations Barker closed out the night of Nocturne 1 with a live set that leaned fully into the rhythmic complexity & genre-defying blends that have defined his musical output.

The set opened airy, with a dreamy, trance-like soundscape. Thick basslines slowly emerged, under choppy snares that carried a trippy, acid-adjacent edge. Barker stretched this buildup out further and further, progressively raising the BPM and layering in distorted bells as the low end deepened, while a deep drum rhythm steadily crescendoed beneath. As drums crept further into the mix, he played with the crowd’s anticipation, pulling the energy back just as one might have thought it might peak, before pushing the intensity up a notch again. As more percussion started stacking in, the set started veering toward a harder, peak-time club sound.

Then, all hell broke loose. Barker cut in a sudden wave of rolling kicks, pulsating through SAT’s Meyer Sound system, fine-tuned courtesy of Montreal’s own HQ Audio, which hit with a thud heavy enough to rattle your chest. The crowd erupted, ecstatic, as cheers echoed across the room. This release of tension marked a definitive breaking point in the energy on the dancefloor. Easing back into a slower tempo, the booming bass gave way to looser drum breaks. Throughout, the British-born musician remained fixed over the decks, fully absorbed in his own composition, his face shaded and nearly hidden for the entirety of the performance.

As the set wound down, he slowed further into softer chords, giving way to keys and hand percussion samples that sat in stark contrast to the hazy trance textures that had carried the night. The rhythm patterns shifted one last time, closing the set on a progressive trance note that faded before sending the crowd off in a cheerful mood, excited for day 3 of the festival. 

Crédit photo: Nina Gibelin Souchon

I may not be quite in the Warped Tour target audience of rose-tinted, reformed alt millennials, but even I found myself drawn into this year’s nostalgia honeypot when I spotted Vermont-born emo rapper nothing,nowhere. on the 2026 lineup. 

My fascination with n,n. (AKA Joseph Edward Mulherin) hit its peak in 2018, when I had far fewer problems and felt far worse at all times. Their desperate, almost cloying emo affect hit my teen angst in just the right way, though their blend of alt-rock, screamo, and cloud rap probably had a direct impact on my serotonin levels, which I may never fully recover from. 

In any case, I found myself rushing out the door to catch nothing,nowhere. in time for his set at 12:40 in the afternoon, which felt like a tall order for a guy who looks like he’s never seen the sun. When I arrived, Mulherin was joined by a full live band of cool-looking emo dudes, firing their new, unfamiliar (to me) sound out to the growing, sweating crowd in blistering volleys. Gone were the rinky-dink, amateur cloud drum samples that I expected, replaced now by djenting guitars, intricate drumwork, and sensational, impassioned vocals from Mulherin himself. 

New n,n. hits less like Lil Peep and more like Evanescence. Mulherin, who used to sound like a Xan-ed out slacker with a deathwish, looks focused to the point of hunger onstage, and has a powerful, commanding voice to match. He’s a lot less aloof than I expected as well, though his armour is still firmly on. 

He makes demands of increasingly heroic devotion to the audience, who are rapidly burning with the sun in their eyes. “I want to see something insane,” he shouts as they launch into the oddly pop-punk-inspired “Pieces of You.” Then, as they careen into a hyped-up rework of all-time emo anthem “hammer,” he decrees: “I want to see a HUNDRED crowd surfers.”

As has always been the case with nothing,nowhere., this set was marked by odd paradoxes that you really can’t think too hard about. A band that sings about hanging their future from the gallows in one moment, and in the next, proclaims they’re ‘repping VT like my name Bernie Sanders.’ The n,n. set at Warped Tour was a reminder that behind the hypermasculine persona of these hardcore emo acts is, usually, a suburban kid with irony poisoning, a weird sense of humour, and a bit of weed-induced brain fog. Maybe that’s why I can’t seem to stay away.

As I waited, with what seems to be hundreds of other VIPs, media, etc. — on an absolutely sweltering day, I might add — to get into Vans Warped Tour, the Floridian emo post-hardcore punks, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, tore into the one song I hoped to witness live, “In Fate’s Hands,” the opener to Don’t You Fake It —an album that got me through some angsty tough times in junior high, back when I wore hoodies with thumb holes and toyed with the idea of cutting…

Still, 20 years later, “In Fate’s Hand” sounded exactly like it did on the 2006 record, even as I heard it in the distance. As I finally made it into the festival and walked to the Off The Wall Main stage, the crowd was sizable, even for this being 12:30 pm — possibly the earliest I’ve ever come for a festival set. Even though the unclean/harsh vocals (a part I absolutely adored live) come from K Enagonio, a newer member, they blend perfectly with the band, covered in chest tats and piercing red hair. During “Face Down,” the group undisputed hit, they blended the screamo parts with Robbie Winter’s soft vocal tones, perfectly. The crowd lost it, as did I. I wish the set was longer, but I couldn’r have asked for a better opener to my Warped Tour.