Moon & Back Music

I’m not going to lie – when a band can pull off singing about pretending not to speak English and picking up dog poo, they must be doing something right. Bowling For Soup, however, can’t. And that’s why it was great fun.

That’s not to say that the gig was bad, though, providing you forget about the support bands. Fortunately I missed most of the first two, having previously heard their material, which was rubbish at best. MC Lars even has a track that uses the chorus from Iggy Pop’s famous “The Passenger.” Needless to say, I left, went outside whilst my friends smoked, and I tried to avoid being splashed by cars driving through an absolutely mammoth puddle. It was a much more interesting and enjoyable experience, and although I only caught a few of MC Lars‘s-s-es tracks, my opinion stands. It was almost as bad as watching Iggy Pop himself.

Zebrahead were considerably more interesting and enjoyable, although tipping on very generic, admiteddly. You can’t say they didn’t put the effort in, for one thing – and the atmosphere on stage and in the crowd was pretty awesome. However, three rules should always be adhered to when supporting a band that sell out every venue they play;

1: The Wall Of Death is neither original, nor cool, and makes your band look shit and unimaginative. The same goes for using the 2001: A Space Odyssey theme music for your opening. Zebrahead did both. Ouch.

2: You need a sound. Your own sound. That does not mean writing a hard metal song, writing a pop-punk song, writing an acoustic song, and acting like a completely different person on stage for each one. A bit of consistency and originality, for fuck’s sake.

3: Taking your top off and showing off your muscles and athletic ability on stage makes you look like a pretentious cock.

That said, Zebrahead didn’t do a bad job, although they’re probably always going to be the support band – unless they develop into something better.

Anyway, onto the main event – BFS have just released a new album “Sorry For Partyin‘,” featuring all the usual toilet humour and the word “gay” about 20 times – again. You may know BFS best through their well-known pop-punk classics “Almost” and “1985.” They’re not special songs, admittedly – but pop punk was never really meant to be incredible, it’s just good fun. What BFS do-do, is write happy-go-lucky songs driven by teenage angst and insecurity – a sort of perfect recipe for a largely under-20 fanbase. Truthfully, my memory of the night is a tad hazy, due to a massive pre-drinking session because “we’re not paying those bloody prices” followed by the inevitable “I’m getting a pint, I don’t care, I’m having fun” at the venue itself. I did make a note of grabbing a pint of Strongbow at the start of BFS, of which the first quarter I thoroughly enjoyed watching their introductory video – a message from the band, a “cheers for coming!” section, followed by their brand new theme song which can be found on their official youtube page. It wasn’t until the band took to the stage and started off with “The Bitch Song” that the other three quarters went flying in a torrent of mental teenagers all pushing forwards – and that was an awesome moment, where it seems like the ice of trying not to dance like a complete prick is completely shattered, and everyone around you is suddenly united by the music. Any gig goer will know this well, and lavish every moment of it. Every moment they can still remember, anyway.

Some of their new material, frankly, is far from great. My Wena (no prizes for guessing the obvious euphemism) was pretty boring, overall – the whole thing sounds very Bloodhound Gang, not much more than a collection of cock-related puns with a half-arsed backing track. This isn’t to say BFS can’t still knock out a great song though, as reflected by No Hablo Ingles and A Really Cool Dance Song. None of it’s too serious, obviously, but BFS never have been – and it’s good to see they’re sticking to their guns unlike so many bands that seem to go on a mad tangent musically after a few albums. That’s not to say they havn’t developed, however – their sound has changed distinctly, and I dare say there is something more mature and reflective about their music on the whole – but it’s no Bob Dylan, fortunately, and still has the same sense of humour of a 14 year old who’s just discovered Internet Porn. If you ever need proof, just check out “BFFF” – sometimes we punch each other in the face, like when I hit on your mom and got to second base. Awesome.

It’s been a few years since I was really into Bowling For Soup, and admittedly, I was a lot younger, mentally. And physically. But mentally, I thought they were a lot deeper when I was more naive – being surrounded by 15 year olds I felt pretty old, and maybe I should be going out clubbing and developing a less cretinous taste in live music – but more than likely, probably not. Singing them back, it’s only now that I’ve realised just how face-scrunchingly corny some of their lyrics are. BFS‘ setlist was a great mix of the classics (encoring with 1985, naturally,) and new material that wasn’t crap live (again, except for My Wena,) not forgetting their cover of Katy Perry‘s “Hot and Cold.” A Really Cool Dance Song was one of the best parts of the show by far, where Jaret ditched the guitar and took on the role of singer/crowd-hyper, only for the stage to be flooded by all the members of the other bands. A Really Cool Dance Song is rather satirical, no doubt ripping at bands like Metro Station and Enter Shikari - “This song sounds like a dance song, ’cause dance songs are cool now” – but maybe a little hypocritically, it makes for a brilliant track to jump to. Who knows, the whole thing was probably one big contradiction. I didn’t care, and neither did anyone else. I was plastered. Great stuff, lads.

The hour and fifteen minutes or so that the gig actually lasted, these parts aside, was relatively uneventful. Gap time banter, songs being played, the odd dance here and there – the usual. I suppose there’s no reason to overdo it – the sound quality at the venue itself was pretty dire, truthfully – unless you like songs where you can only hear the kick, snare and vocals. Sort of like demented teenage rap music. Jaret can definitely hold a decent-enough tone, and maybe they’re helped by the overall simplicity of their music – but, giving them enough credit, they can definitely play live, and get right into it, which is always great to see – there’s nothing worse than a band who blatantly arn’t enjoying themselves. They played, we had a laugh, the crowd sang, and one of my friends nutted someone’s shoulder and bled all over himself from the nose – and that was good enough for me. A hilarious, drunken, immature, very slippery floored, expensive bar’d gig. Quality.

Finally, name me one person that doesn’t want their lead singer’s guitar, and I will give you a tenner. That is all.