Bowling For Soup
Southampton, O2 Guildhall 10/10/13
Pop punks Bowling For Soup are back have clocked up almost 20 years as a band and once again made the visit to the shores of the UK. Billed as their “Farewell UK” tour, is this the last time they’re planning on playing over here?
We arrive at around half eight to find we’ve missed the opening band Patent Pending, and literally minutes later the lights have dimmed, the crowd are screaming “BFS! BFS!” Well it was either that or DFS, but nobody is really that keen on that sofa warehouse, although they do seem to constantly have a sale on all year. 60% off – bargain! Nope, it must have been BFS, that would make much more sense.
Having seen Bowling For Soup before I’m fully aware of what to expect. Easy going pop punk songs, lots of innuendos, messing around, plectrum chucking and a crowd that pretty much hangs on their every word. That’s quite something to achieve, so full marks to them on this.
What I do like about Bowling For Soup though is that they put on a really good live show, even if I’m not a massive fan of the tunes. Coming onto intro music performed by themselves sets the crowd off right away.
I’m not totally aware of the full Bowling For Soup back catalogue, sure I know the singles and the odd other song here and there from seeing them before. Unlike most of the crowd that then proceed to sing along to almost every word for the next 2 and a bit hours!
Yep, that’s right they played over 2 hours! Well when I say played, they must have spent a good 25-30% of the time talking and messing around.
You can tell this band like playing live, they feed on the fun interaction with the audience. If you were seeing them for the first time then you’d probably be laughing along with them. But having seen their last tour as well, sadly the on-stage antics are the same. There’s the pub set up on the side, where the support band Patent Pending spend the show drinking. There’s the whole “we’re the band you can wave at and we wave back”. The end of a song being finished up by Patent Pending. And the mid song photo posing session, complete with appropriate music to mimic the moment. As a band you really cannot even begin to fault them on their entertainment levels.
At one point calling a fan out after he screamed at Jaret to “lick the bra” that had been thrown onto the stage. The fan then couldn’t follow up his words when challenged to come onto the stage and do just that.
Bowling For Soup obviously played a fair few tracks from their latest album “Lunch. Drunk. Love” and played tracks like “Since We Broke Up” and “Critically Disdained” within the extended setlist. Other songs I can remember included “Emily”, “My Wena”, “High School Never Ends”, “Almost” and “Suckerpunch”. The highlight for me being when they played the theme tune to Phineas and Ferb, not once, but twice. The set also included a cover of “Stacy’s Mom” by Fountains Of Wayne and of course near the end they rocked out two of their more well known tracks “The Bitch Song” and “Girl All The Bad Guys Want”. Throughout the set with guitarist Chris constantly playing with his plectrum by flicking it onto his elbow, into the air and catching it, whilst rolling his guitar around in the air, the crowd absolutely ate it up.
Apart from when Jaret got a guest up from his side project People On Vacation to sing a tune, the crowd obviously didn’t know it and you could tell. Luckily the encore included a cover of “Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears, which got them all singing and the closing song “1985” ensured the fans went home with huge smiles on their faces.
Bowling For Soup may or may not be back playing in the UK after this run of shows, but what they have left people with was one hell of an entertaining night and proof of how to enjoy what you do!
Mr. T
Huge thanks to Dave @ Invictus.
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