Up-Load UK, Gigs News & reviews Bowling For Soup Review

The Drunk Punk show bounces into town…

It’s the first night of Bowling For Soups latest UK tour. Everything’s running a little behind schedule and the doors open late, denying the large but young crowd the opportunity to see the opening band Army Of Freshmen.

They’re obviously popular with the Bowling For Soup crowd, by the time we finally manage to sort our passes out and scuttle down to the front the hall is mostly full and if you didn’t know any better you would think they were the headline act judging from the audience reaction. Bouncing around on stage, Vocalist Chris Jay interacts with the crowd well and has them eating out of the palm of his hand. After a brief visit to the front of the crowd, the band has to leave the stage.

Next up is MC Lars, with his unique brand of “Post Punk Laptop Rap”. Coming on stage to the strains of “Also Spach Zarathustra” (aka the theme from “2001: A Space Odyssey”) and with only an apple iBook for company his act seems to be part hip hop, part stand-up. Starting his set with the bouncy “Hurricane Fresh”, there are a few fists punching the air. Demonstrating intelligence behind his empty-headed stage persona, “Mr Raven” plunders Edgar Allen Poe for inspiration. “Everybody jump” he encourages, and for a moment people do, and though he has some supporters here, there are those who are harder to persuade, as the odd bottle heading his way and boo will testify. It’s all upbeat stuff though, and when Bowling For Soup join him on stage, there is a roar of approval for their Linkin Park style collaboration. Finishing the set with “iGeneration”, most if not the entire crowd have been won over to his cause.

American Hi-Fi storm onto the stage in a jet-lagged haze. “Manchester, what the fuck is going on” says singer/guitarist Stacy Jones as a few bottles of water come perilously close to laying him out. The band bursts into “The Art Of Losing”. There are obviously a lot of American Hi-Fi fans in the house and they’re up and dancing without any encouragement. “We just flew in so everything’s a little fucked up” confirms Stacy as they rip into the Blink 182 style “The Breakup Song”. Next up is “Rise” which displays a welcome edgier side to the band, and the passion imbued in this song boils to the fore as Stacy screams “You got the best of me!”. That certainly seems to be the case, as next up we’re back to happy pop punk land with “Fool”. Fortunately there is more material of substance to come as “Beautiful Disaster” sees a pounding bass line counterpoint with some seriously chugging riffs. News that the new, as yet unreleased in the UK album is on sale at the merchandise stand is greeted with a big cheer as they pound through some of their new material. “Flavour Of The Weak” is another cheery pop tune but the last song sees the rocker star inside them all come out to play. Thundering away at his guitar, Stacy starts punishing it with a drumstick, scraping across the strings, jamming it in the strings, dropping it down the monitors and pulling it across them by the lead amidst a wail of feedback. He jumps across the barriers into the audience requiring security to go in looking for the microphone before returning to the stage and pulling back from destroying the drum kit at the last moment.

Of course, Bowling For Soup are the main event and even before they hit the stage they’re capering around and posing for fan photos. Jaret picks up the microphone and delivers a 5 minute tirade about 80’s hair metal band videos, especially The Damn Yankees before Motley Crue’s “Wild Side” comes pounding out of the speakers. They take to the stage to rapturous cheers and from this point on all pretence at serious musicianship goes out of the window. “Rock ‘n’ Roll, Rock ‘n’ fucking Roll” Jaret urges the crowd to chant back at him before launching into “The Bitch Song”. A slew of hits follow, and there is of course lots of banter with the crowd, as well as the most blatant examples of buttering up your crowd I’ve ever seen. Of course everybody knows that when Jaret is telling us that “Manchester is my favourite place in the UK to play – the women are so hot and it’s all downhill from here”, he’ll be saying the same thing the next night. And the next night. And the next. The crowd is loving it, the boys can do no wrong and their show is hugely entertaining. Giant inflatable hands unfurl themselves during “Punk Rock 101” and the band even have a beer break in the middle, playing Dave Lee Roth’s “Yankee Rose” over the speakers whilst gathering for a cold one. Drunk rock indeed. And whether it’s waxing lyrical on the genius that is a full English breakfast (“Whoever thought of having baked beans with breakfast is a genius on a par with the guy who invented beer!”) or musing on the uses for the inflatable sheep thrown from the audience (“We’re from Texas, not Wales!”) it’s obvious that their upbeat happy music plays second fiddle to just having a good time up there. And they do, almost giving the hangar like venue an intimate party atmosphere. Musings on who the greatest bands ever are (“Number 1 – Iron Maiden. Number 2 – Judas Priest. Number 3 – Bowling For Soup….”) and attempts to make the worlds loudest fart noises (“That was less a fart, more a wet shit”) don’t help the already late running time and when the venue put the lights on after “Girl All The Bad Guys Want” they manage to squeeze in one last song, “Almost”. With many of the audience sneaking out to catch their last buses and trains, the greatest comedy show in Manchester comes to a close.