A sold out show in a venue they weren’t even supposed to play, a bar on stage for drinks in between songs and a brief education on safe sex in between Disney TV show theme songs, Bowling For Soup proved pop punk isn’t dead, it’s alive and it’s awesome.
When Bowling For Soup was announced to play Nottingham they were first scheduled to play the Rescue Rooms, so it says something about just how much organisers underestimated their popularity because by the time the show came around they had been moved to Rock City’s main stage, which they then sold out with unfortunate fans still clamouring to try and get tickets any way they could. The band soon to be going in their 22nd year of playing and going on another UK tour after declaring their April 2013 tour to be their last in the UK, was proven that they had called it quits on the UK as they were able to sell out a venue with a near 2,500 capacity easily. They say pop punk is dead but clearly no one told anyone at this show as after going to gigs with artists playing a genre considered to be alive and well not even close to selling out this same venue.
With the band recently turning to crowd funding music site PledgeMusic to release their greatest hits album made up of 17 fan favourite songs rerecorded for their 20th anniversary entitled ‘Songs People Actually Liked Volume 1 The First 10 Years,’ the set list picked itself more or less for this show. With the crowd firmly locked in place since the opening act, the moment that Bowling For Soup finally came on they were met with overwhelming noise from their fans and as soon as that first song hit it was clear just as good as their records and proved that the Bowling For Soup sound was still as good as it ever has been. The show itself was a true testament to the band and the pop punk spirit they represent as the show was a clear summary of the band’s character with most breaks between songs having the band provide a load of laughs with stories throughout the bands careers, jokes between the band and the crowd and the band’s lead guitarist giving the crowd his view on the best way to have safe sex “just do it in the butt.”
However none of this took away from the fact that Bowling for Soup are definitely pop punk legends and their music reflected that outside the songs that were on their greatest hits album. With a tribute to pop punk as a genre by a mash up of some of the greatest pop punk anthems ever written into one song and even a quick performance of the theme song they co-wrote and sung for the hit Disney TV show Phineas and Ferb thrown into the set as well there’s no doubt of their status.
The gig was definitely my personal favourite of any band I’ve seen so far and an experience I’d highly recommend that anyone who is given the chance to see these guys live take it up immediately and they won’t be disappointed. Here’s hoping for a third farewell tour sometime in the not too distant future.
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