Bowling For Soup are a band that need little introduction.
They are a multi-million selling, Grammy Award
nominated tour de force who have conquered the
globe with their hook laden, summer tinged pop
punk. With a career spanning fifteen years, a
whopping ten albums under their belts and enough
partying to last a lifetime, they are truly the
champions of American pop punk.
Tonight sees them in a slightly different guise,
they have ditched their regular full band show
(and two of their members, guitarist Chris Burney
and drummer Gary Wiseman) in favour of just two
mics and two acoustic guitars. This is date nine
of fourteen shows on the aptly named “An
Acoustic Evening with Jaret & Erik of Bowling
For Soup”. Tonight’s show has a very
special feeling about it, and despite the absence
of half of the band, it still feels like a party.
Frontman Jaret Reddick is accompanied on a lamp
lit stage by Erik Chandler and they both prove
that if their day job was to ever cease, they
could easily dive into the world of stand-up.
The not so subtle innuendos and penis jokes so
evocative of a regular Bowling For Soup show are
unveiled to the delight of the sold out audience.
Though this proves to be anything but a regular
Bowling For Soup show.
Reddick and Chandler rifle through a two and
a half hour set comprising of the staple crowd
pleasers (Almost, High School Never Ends and Girl
All the Bad Guys Want), among new songs and several
rarities that wouldn’t usually get played
at your average Bowling For Soup gig. It is acoustically
that their songs backtrack from the jaded and
overplayed to the new and exciting, quintessential,
Texan-harmonised classics.
Bowling For Soup are able to provide fun in abundance,
they are one of the few bands that seem to have
avoided the bravado or pretence many bands of
their quota have acquired. From witnessing tonight’s
performance it is easy to see why they are still
around fifteen years since their inception, and
it is quite easy to imagine them onstage in fifteen
years to come. And I for one will be happy to
be witness to that.
bowling For Soup 5/5
Review By Ben Connell
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