Texan four-piece Bowling for Soup have brought their fun-loving pop-tinged punk to the UK once again this Autumn. This time it’s their UK Farewell Tour and they’ve invited along their protégés – Patent Pending – ready to fly the flag for pop-punk in the future. The BFS members are all in their late 30s or early 40s and have decided this will be there last trip to the UK.
The O2 Academy in Leeds is a great venue for a band of this size and right from the minute the doors open, it is clear that their fan-base is very cross-generational – young children of 8 or 9 with their parents can be seen sporting BFS t-shirts as well as men probably old enough to be the band’s Fathers. Bowling for Soup have been going strong for 19 and a half years and they have attracted fans old and new to this show.
Patent Pending open the show with crowd-pleasing ‘Shake Weights and Moving Crates’. Bowling For Soup have brought them along before and the crowd seem to know every word. There’s a lot of movement for a support act which is always a promising sign for an enjoyable gig.
We even get a sneak peak of Jaret Reddick of Bowling For Soup in their set as he comes out to perform ‘Classic You’ from Patent Pending’s latest album ‘Brighter’ on which he appears as a featured artist – unfortunately it’s not a great first impression as he forgets all the words and PP’s Joe ends up singing his verse. With a rumoured 30-song set-list from BFS it’s forgivable that Jaret suffers a small senior moment. Patent Pending end their set with ‘Douchebag’ which invites a sing-a-long chorus and a brilliant way to end their near-perfect set. If we can’t have BFS anymore, I’d gladly take a headline slot from Patent Pending.
The crowd are in good spirits when Bowling For Soup take to the stage. Opening with ‘Critically Disdained’ from their recent offering ‘Lunch. Drunk. Love.’ and following it straight up with big hit ‘Almost’, it’s clear right from the start that this is going to be a great set.
In between songs the band chat to each other rather than at the audience making the audience feel like old friends. Numerous apologies are uttered by Jaret to the many parents in the balcony who chose to bring their children to this gig; the topics of genitalia and oral sex are a firm favourite for the in-between song chatter. The band have their own bartender on stage mixing them cocktails all night and Patent Pending are milling around as well – occasionally filing in on the instruments to give the BFS guys a break on their mammoth 2 and a half hour set.
Big hits like ‘Emily’, ‘Punk Rock 101’, ‘Girl all the Bad Guys Want’ and ‘High School Never Ends’ are spread between lesser known songs from a cross-section of their 13 albums, but everyone here seems to know every word. About mid-way through the set Jaret invites Ryan Hamilton on stage – the guitarist from his side-project People on Vacation – and they perform ‘Prettiest Girl in the World’ which is not received too well by the audience – there’s very little movement and it’s probably the biggest lull in an otherwise riveting set – these people are here to see Bowling for Soup and not People on Vacation.
Technically, the band are on top form. This is their 5th gig of the tour so far and there was no evidence of fatigue whatsoever – some of the much younger (dare I say fitter) bands couldn’t do what these guys do which just goes to show experience always wins.
The Encore is 3 songs long with ‘Belgium’, a cover of Britney’s ‘…baby one more time’ (which appears in Freaky Friday – we are treated to an all-too graphic description of guitarist Chris’s fantasies about Jamie-Lee Curtis) and of course super-hit ‘1985’. The set ends with the entire crowd singing the chorus, lots of smoke cannons and Jaret informing us that ‘the set has to end now because our drummer Gary needs to take a s**t’.
Aside from a few lulls (as there is always likely to be in a long set), Bowling for Soup delivered. Everyone left the O2 with huge grins on their faces – I would expect nothing less from the Texan Kings of perverse Pop-Punk.