Up-Load UK, Gigs News & reviews Bowling For Soup Review 3

Well here we are, our third time on this tour in a week, and what a great tour it is, some of the best punk pop bands around all playing together.

We arrived at the hall at 3pm just as everyone started to set up for their sound checks and prepare for the nights show. There is a great buzz in the air and lots of happy faces milling around, the bands are loving ever minute of this tour and all look remarkably refreshed despite the lack of sleep, excesses of alcohol and grueling 7 night a week shows.

The fans are starting to build up outside with loads of teenagers eagerly trying to catch a glimpse of their favourite band members and maybe even get a signature or photo, a few of the lucky ones get in to watch Bowling For Soup do their sound check and actually spend a few minutes with the guys afterwards.

As it draws nearer to the doors opening time the main hall is magically transformed from a mish mash of equipment boxes and un-built safety barriers to a clean, tidy concert hall ready to hold over 1000 screaming fans. This is the calm before the storm …… as 7pm hits and the doors open we take our place at the front of the stage ready to take our photo’s as the fans come streaming in and rush towards the barrier trying to get the best spot for the night.

A few minutes later the hall is full, the lights are dimmed and a roar goes up as Army Of Freshmen hit the stage. Suddenly the place comes alive with bouncing screaming people who are loving ever minute of the guys show. They work their magic on any of the people in the crowd that have not heard of them before and it doesn’t take long before they love them as much as I do !

Chris belts out the tunes in rapid succession and in between songs he is telling people to get out after the show to buy their cd’s , and from what we saw it seems that people loved their music and did just that. The merchandise stand was very popular after their set finished.

The closing track of the night was the anthem ‘Get Um Up’ (which features on both their album ‘Beg. Borrow, Steal’ and also the Ep ‘At The End Of The Day’ that was produced by Jaret of Bowling for Soup) The fans seemed to love ‘Get Um Up’ especially when Chris took his customary leap from the stage down onto the security barrier then spent the next few minutes trying to sing the track while being hugged and kissed by the audience. The look on his face when he got back on stage and said goodnight just about summed up the feeling of the crowd, a huge grin spread across his face and his happiness was infectious. The Freshmen had conquered Wolverhampton !

Next on stage was MC Lars, the crowd were very mixed in their reaction to him, some loved his style, others clearly didn’t and gave him a really hard time, while the other open minded people actually stood back and listened to his unique set of ‘Post Punk Laptop Rap’

The crowd soon paid attention when he was joined on stage by Chris Jay (Army of Freshmen) sporting an MC Lars hoodie, for the great track ‘Mr Raven’, it was wonderful to see these two bouncing around the stage rapping as their voices work really well together and they clearly enjoyed doing the track .

A couple more tracks followed and then Lars invited the band ‘ Hearts That Hate’ onto the stage to sing the almost screamo track ‘Signing Emo’ at this point the whole room broke out into a screaming mass as they realised that ‘Hearts That Hate’ are actually Bowling For Soup.

He may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but believe me MC Lars is a genius and won over many of the crowd tonight.

By the time American Hi-Fi hit the stage the hall felt like someone had turned the heating up to max, the crowd were melting and a steady stream of steam was wafting into the air.

It was obvious that the band had many true fans in the audience as they worked their way through many of the firm favourites such as ‘Scar’ ‘ The Art Of Losing’ and ‘Beautiful Disaster’ the energy was magnificent as they delivered hit after hit in their unique style to the hero worshiping crowd. There was a moment when Jason (Drummer) had to leave his seat to adjust the kit, this was probably due to the fact that the stage has a slight backwards slope to it. Stacy announced that Jason was going to do a drum solo and suddenly the air was filled with the loudest, fastest beats as he nearly beat the drum kit to death and delivered some of the best drumming that this crowd will ever witness.

The best was saved ‘til last though as the guy’s blasted out their anthem ‘Flavor of the weak’ , the crowd were singing along at the tops of their voices and loving ever second.

By the time they left the stage, covered in sweat but with big smiles on their faces, there were many teenagers in the hall who would be going home and having dreams about these good looking men.

There was a 30 minute interlude before Bowling for Soup were due on stage, this gave the crowd a chance to get a drink and try and cool down, not an easy thing to do in this venue tonight. As you passed by the doors to the main hall you were hit with a wall of heat that is more in keeping with a tropical jungle – not what you’d expect to find in Wolverhampton.

Suddenly a roar erupted and everyone rushed back inside to jostle for their place in the crowd to get the best view of the tours headliners, Bowling for Soup. Nobody could have been disappointed by their performance tonight as they wowed the fans while delivering some great rock ‘n’ roll tracks with their own special twist of humour .

Suddenly they broke out into ‘Get Um Up’( Freshmen) and the fans looked puzzled but not as much as when this was followed by ‘Mr Raven’ (MC Lars) and finally ‘Flavor of the Weak’ (American Hi-Fi), once this had finished Jaret announced “That was our tribute to the great bands that we are lucky enough to have with us on this tour” and the crowd showed their appreciation of this with loud cheers.

The whole hall rocked, bounced and screamed throughout the show whilst trying to sing along with all their hits and laughing loudly at all the humourous comments that the guy’s kept saying.

This is a really great show and if there are people out there who haven’t got tickets yet to see it then all I can say is get out there and find some !

We were extremely lucky and privileged to be able to catch three of their shows on this tour and it just seems to be getting better and better each time we see them.