Live Review: Nick Mulvey - Union Chapel, London 18/06/2025
Nick Mulvey charms the Union Chapel.
Opening for Nick Mulvey at the beautifully serene Union Chapel, the ever-jovial Jerub delights the crowd with his new single ‘Hold My Breath’, which was released on Friday. Baring his soul both in his lyrics and to the crowd in his candid commentary between songs, he describes how the track is inspired by the feeling of “Holding onto something in your life that doesn’t make you feel good anymore”. His lyrics show a maturity that almost feels beyond his 24 years as he sings: ‘Are you still searching for the love you never knew? Are you still hurting when it's time to let it go?’. Playing a hugely heartfelt set, he has quite a following in the audience tonight who are clearly wooed by his powerful tunes. After performing at the Kings coronation concert in 2023 the Nottingham based singer continues to be on the up.
Entering the stage to huge excitement from the crowd, Cambridge based folk favourite Nick Mulvey kicks off the set with the rousing ‘River To The Real’, the poignant lines ‘I don’t care what they say, I gave my guns away’ seemingly speaking to the sentiment of not having defensive negative people around you, and learning to ignore it. The soul-searching poetry of the words: ‘Know, do we know how/ how could this go / And how good it could be?’ feels like it strikes a chord with the many couples in the crowd tonight.
On this second of his two sold out nights at Islington’s Union Chapel, this tour marks the release of his latest album ‘Dark Harvest Pt. 1’ earlier this month. As Mulvey described himself in February earlier this year: “For me Dark Harvest Part 1 tracks the descent and grief that hit me in the last three years, during the losses and challenges I faced. Often brutal, these years have tenderised me, as I know they have others. Making this music carried me through. Dark Harvest is the first fruits after a deep winter, songs that tell of a new creation and a clarified faith. Back when I was at the hardest point, when I was on my knees, a friend said to me, “There will be a ‘dark harvest’ to all of this Nick, there will be treasure from these struggles”. And she was right.”
Addressing the crowd, Nick nostalgically says: “This one goes way back to 2014, as he introduces the exquisitely evocative ‘Cucurucu’, which has the captivated audience passionately singing along to every word. On the gloriously upbeat Irish folk tinged ‘Holy Days’, the jauntier change of pace displays Mulvey’s natural ability to write a song with a heavy subject matter but sound simultaneously joyful, as the high pitched, melodic instrumentals juxtapose the bitter sweet lyrics describing tears and yearning for someone.
‘Dark Harvest’ sounds wonderfully apt in this celestial set with Mulvey’s almost ethereal wooing vocals that opens the song, combined with the romanticism of the line ‘I want to kiss you in the shadows’ evoking a real atmosphere.
Telling a truly compelling story behind the inspiration of ‘Nothing Lasts Forever’, he describes how when he was really struggling he used to go and stay at his friend’s Uru’s outhouse on the sofa. One day when he was staying there, his friend said: “There’s a carpenter coming called Lee to do some work on the kitchen cabinets”. Mulvey said when the carpenter turned up, “I was just sitting there crying, writing a song with my guitar, in a glorious snotty flood of emotion, and Lee stooped, put down his tools, looked at him and said: “Are you ok? Woman is it?” and I said “Yeah”, and Lee passed and simply said: “Nothing Lasts Forever”. Both making the crowd roar with laughter and pause in silence to reflect on his story, he sings the song with an immense energy that matches his natural charisma.
A storming three song encore is rounded off with ‘Fever To The Form’, the opening verse ‘So whether music or madness/ Live by one of the two/ By one of the two’ epitomising the songwriting genius of Nick Mulvey, and leaving the crowd utterly compelled by his glorious performance.
Words by Brendan Sharp
Photo Credit: Liam Maxwell
