Tonight
is a good night in Birmingham, the weathers a
bit soggy but better than it has been, the dark
is drawing in, and Birmingham Academy is opening
its doors early to the lucky fans who bought VIP
packages to meet Bowling For Soup, on this their
Farewell Tour. The main room feels weird as Bowling
For Soup take to the stage to play a few acoustic
numbers for the VIP’s, then they pose for
photos and sign the crowds merch, then they leave
the room and go backstage as the venues doors
open to the huge crowds that are outside and queuing
all the way up to the Pagoda, the room starts
to swell with fans, and then the first band comes
on stage.
Patent Pending, are the one and only support tonight,
which means they’ve got a tough job as there’s
not much time to entertain the fans due to the
fact that Bowling For Soups will be playing a
massive set, but somehow they pull it off fantastically.
The band comes onstage like their on fire, they
run around the stage bouncing like headless chickens.
Singer Joe Ragosta instantly jumps down into the
crowd and gets stuck into the show. These New
York pop punkers know what they’re doing
and get this crowd raging. They sound great, with
fast drums, popping bass and power chords a plenty
all with Ragosta’s unique fast pace vocals
on top. Patent Pending have been around for about
12 years and so know how to put on a show, and
this involves dance moves,
crowd swimming and climbing up to the upper balcony
and having the guitarist Marc Kantor play a guitar
solo, its different it’s fun and its fantastic.
The crowd swimming is genius Ragosta gets dressed
up in arm bands and swimming goggles and has a
race with bassist Corey Devincenzo, they get the
crowd to split leave a gap in the middle for them
to judge how far back they have to go, and then
they dive into the crowd moving all the way back
to near the sound desk and back to the stage,
Ragosta wins as he jumps over the barrier and
onto the stage but Devincenzo takes his defeat
gracefully and one
of the security guards carries him back onto the
stage. All this stage antics would make up for
poor songs, but Patent Pending have great songs
up their sleeves too, including a very catchy
song called Hey Mario which is about Super Mario
and his never ending quest for the princess, throw
in a couple of covers and you have the best warm
up act I’ve ever seen. Luckily if you missed
this tour Patent Pending are back in April (along
with 2 members of Bowling For Soup) for a headline
tour, so you can enjoy a full set of crazy antics
a fun pop punk songs.
Bowling
For Soup are obviously the main act and after
Patent Pending’s amazing display, it does
put a little doubt in my mind that they won’t
be able to top them, but as soon as they come
out onto the stage they put my mind at ease as
they start a 31 song setlist! The crowd chant
BFS then the lights go dim and the Bowling For
Soup theme song plays and the band walk out slowly
all waiting quietly and still as the music stops
playing they start by blasting off an almost none
stop 3 songs which includes Criticially Distained,
Almost and No Hablos Ingles. They sound amazingly
clear, with the catchy tones of Jaret Riddick’s
voice harmonised with the gravelly tones of Eric
Chandler make the vocals loud and clear, mix this
with the bouncy bass, guitar riffs and solos along
with the pounding drums and you have a perfect
sounding Bowling
For Soup. After blasting through the first 3 songs,
the band take some time to talk to the crowd (as
they continue to do throughout the set, they play
3 songs then talk to the crowd, 3 songs have a
drink, 3 songs talk to the crowd etc etc) as they
announce the bar is open and fish out 2 fans to
come join Patent Pending at the bar on the stage,
where there’s plenty of booze and a onetime
chance to sit on stage and watch Bowling For Soup
from a unique angle. Bowling For Soup have a great
onstage chemistry and they banter between each
other about things like, Birmingham, boobs, tables(as
Eric gets a table brought on stage for him to
put his drink on, much to Jaret’s distain),
girls, guys, balls, sex outside and how much they
love the UK. They continue with their huge set
and play; Let’s GO To The Pub, Hooray For
Beer, Emily, Since We Broke
Up, Turbulence and High School Never Ends. They
then play Ohio (Come Back To Texas), and as they
go into the last verse Patent Pending take over
the instruments (almost seamlessly) and finish
the song for them as they go to the bar and have
a drink, it’s this kind of random spontaneity
that keeps your eyes locked on the stage. They
continue with Right About Now, A Really Cool Dance
Song, My Wena, I Don’t Wanna Rock and then
play the Phoneases and Ferb Theme before which
they announce this “this next song is for
all the parents that brought they’re kids
because they knew we do the music for a cartoon,
next time you’re probably best checking
out the bands other songs before presuming we
just play songs from the show”. They continue
the madness with Envy before telling the crowd
that “this next song were playing isn’t
our song, lots of people think it is, but it’s
not, but it rocks so we started playing it”
before blasting into Stacys Mom
by Fountains of Wayne. They continue with The
Last Rock Show, Punk Rock 101 and then do a cover
of People On Vacation’s song(which is Jaret
and Eric’s other band who will be back in
April with Patent Pending), Prettiest Girl In
The World. Now up to this point the band have
played 20 songs, and since about My Wena, every
song has been sped up and its needed as they’ve
been playing for an hour and a half and still
have another hour left and still have 11 songs
to play, you can see the band look tired but the
breaks between songs are helping them get their
energy back before they continue with; My Hometown,
Suckerpunch, When We Die, The Bitch Song, Shut-Up
and Smile, Girl All The Bad Guys Want Friends
o’ Mine and Circle before they leave the
stage ready for their Encore. They come
back onstage and finish this amazing set with
a song about missing their family whilst they’re
on tour, Belgium, a cover of Baby One More Time
and finally wrapping the set up with 1985.
Bowling For Soup say this is farewell and not
goodbye and that they will be back to play festivals
and with their separate band People On Vacation,
but I personally don’t believe them, I’m
sure in 2 years they’ll be back touring
as Bowling For Soup and although some people might
feel annoyed that they thought this was goodbye
I for one will be happy as Bowling For Soup have
so many great songs and have such a fun live show
it would be a shame if this was the last tour
they did over in the UK.
Overall tonight has been amazing, a great support
and an awesome headline band. Unique stage shows
and fun banter and chats between the bands and
the crowd, all topped with bouncy songs make this
one of the best shows I’ve ever been to
and I hope it isn’t the last time.
Patent Pending 4.5/5
BFS 5/5
Review By James Daly
|
