On a cold, rainy and windy Monday evening, Texan four-piece Bowling For Soup graced the LCR with old buddies from The Dollyrots and even brought along Nottingham-based band Lacey. The evening was tied together with MC Lars, having short appearances between acts.
So this would be a good place to start: MC Lars. Armed with nothing but a Mac, a mic and a Legend of Zelda medallion, had brief performances on stage in between the acts. Although this gave the overall concert a sense of fluidity, as it cancelled-out the boring and impatient wait for the next band, it personally took me a long time to warm to his performance. It wasn’t until he did this ingenious freestyle with random items donated by the crowd that I really got on board, and by then, his time on stage was up. That being said, it didn’t take the audience long to get in the mood for his fun and innocent humour. When he asked for audience participation, it felt like the vast majority were willing to comply and, if anything, he did pretty well to get everyone in the mood for the party that Bowling for Soup were going to bring.
Lacey were up next and gave a tight and standard performance. It’s quite strange, despite how decent the quality of the sound was, it was very easy to forget most of what happened during their set. If you’re into the middle-field, inoffensive corner of rock music, then that’s totally okay and Lacey are probably the band for you. I am not disregarding their musical expertise; but maybe it just wasn’t for me. The maths here didn’t particularly add up and they seemed a little out of place. We were ready for an evening fuelled with American pop punk and dorky humour and Lacey’s reserved sound just didn’t quite fit. Although a bold move, their slower cover of Blink-182’s ‘Dammit’ felt like a bit of a misfire. But in all fairness, a song as iconic as ‘Dammit’ by a band as huge as Blink-182 is going to be a tough challenge. Sometimes songs such as this should just be left unchallenged. I’m sure that during tours with bands of a similar ilk, Lacey deliver a good and fitting show, but this left me waiting for The Dollyrots.
After another short interlude by MC Lars, The Dollyrots launched themselves on stage in a true adolescent fashion and by and large, they were just happy to be back on the road with Bowling for Soup again. It was here that the evening began to pick up. Establishing what would come to be a fun and sentimental evening, The Dollyrots radiated with enjoyment and this perfectly reflected onto the crowd. It’s a common idea that the audience will reciprocate the amount of energy a band puts in on stage, and I feel like this was proved here. Contrasting to Lacey, the Florida-born band completely changed the scene of the evening with emo-fringes, long blonde hair and Ska-Punk t-shirts alongside thick American accents. It’s quite easy to throw The Dollyrots into the pop punk genre, and in many ways that makes perfect sense. However, it became quite clear that The Dollyrots succeeded in doing something more with the genre, such as giving it this country/folk-twinge. This, of course, was confirmed during their rendition of ‘Brand New Key’ by folk singer Melanie. They sung about a brand new pair of rollerskates, and, as you could imagine, we sung about a brand new combine harvester. Kelly Ogden and Luis Cabezas wrapped up the evening of sentimentalities by bringing their baby son on stage, warming the hearts of the audience and generating “Aws” from all.
By this point, the LCR was crammed, we were shoulder to shoulder – as it always gets – and we were ready for Bowling for Soup.
The backdrop-curtain was removed, and there stood the glorious Bowling for Soup set. Our eyes were treated to their iconic cartoon image behind a pub, because of course there was. There was a dartboard, a framed picture, toilets for both girls and boys and even their very own bar in which they frequently went to for a quick drink, because of course they can. Coming on to a bouncy intro, the crowd chanted in true American fashion for Bowling for Soup and the second they got going, so did the audience. It always amazes me how much people can be up for it on a cold evening like Monday and it didn’t take long for me to get involved too. Reddick, Burney, Chandler and Wiseman were very, very quick to prove to us that they were having a party and everyone was invited, chomping through song after song whilst still finding time to have spontaneous and actually comedic banter between tracks. Dick jokes, toilet humour and a floating condom should give you a general idea of the evening. Not only were they hilarious, but their chemistry radiated into the audience. Only a band as close and as happy-go-lucky as Bowling for Soup could string along a joke about a floating condom for as long as they did.
The band played a selection of all their classics you’d expect them to play, but to prove that pop punk isn’t dead, they treated us to something wonderful: a five song pop punk medley. All The Small Things, Basket Case, Girls & Boys, My Friends Over You and then The Middle. Just when you think they couldn’t get any better, they then played Stacy’s Mom in-full. It was truly one of those “I want to film this to prove it actually happened, but I just want to go nuts” moments and the entirety of the LCR, from front to back, sang along, lyric-for-lyric, from the pit of their stomachs. Call me corny, but it was one of those moments you could only describe as beautiful.
Bowling for Soup continued to break the rules even during their encore. Instead of going off stage just for us to chant them back on, they just slid to the back of their set for a quick drink, because to hell with walking all the way to the dressing room and back, right?
Ending their set with Girl all the Bad Guys Want, Bowling for Soup smashed the LCR and certainly got everyone’s week off to a good start, and all I can say is thank you.
Words – Chris Hambling
Photography – Kayleigh Warren
