Bowling for Soup had always been a Warped Tour staple, so I never thought about seeing them outside of that circumstance. Well, now that the tour has been out of commission for six years, I kind of miss those guys!
And after getting the opportunity to catch their set at the When We Were Young Festival last fall, I jumped pretty quickly at the chance to see them again more locally. They are a band that I took for granted how many songs I actually knew along with how good they are! To top it all off, these guys are entertaining and truly talented in a live setting. You want to hear something crazy? This tour stop was in celebration of their album, A Hangover You Don’t Deserve, that came out in the middle of their discography timeline, but it still came out twenty years ago! How’s that for making you feel old in the middle of the week. I know I sure do.
In honor of that record, they played all eighteen songs front to back and then added two of their other biggest hits to round out the setlist. After opening with “Almost,” lead vocalist, Jaret shared with the crowd that at the time this album came out, iTunes was just getting off the ground, so to entice people to buy albums, they’d share thirty seconds of the first three or four songs. So he joked that “this set is going to be really front-loaded and then at least half of you are going to wonder why you’re here for a while.” Admittedly, I am one of those people, though the songs were still really enjoyable.
They also joked that this was the earliest “1985” will ever be heard in one of their sets. Truly! It was fourth out of twenty songs! And for whatever reason, they played it at like double speed. Still slaps. Though there were lots of songs to get through, that didn’t stop the band from talking, kind of a lot, in between songs. They are really funny guys, so I personally didn’t mind it too much. They even had a lucky fan go on stage at some point to try and win merch or pick the next song they were going to play. She looked completely awestruck and on the verge of happy tears, so that was a mood lifter for sure.
Aside from those guys just being a fun time, the crowd was also totally into it. Again, this was another House of Blues show that was sold out. A part of me was very surprised while another part of me wasn’t surprised at all. The age range in attendance was all over the place, but that didn’t stop everyone from collectively singing along at the top of their lungs and bopping along to every song. Shows like that make me smile, and even though Bowling for Soup aren’t even remotely my favorite band, a crowd like that makes the experience that much better.
