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.
