It’s a sell out tonight as Bowling for Soup entertain the packed, 400 strong crowd of The Sugarmill in Stoke on Trent. The bars are virtually impossible to get to, as are the loos because of the sheer volume of people, but that doesn’t matter tonight. Everyone is in good spirits, and if you’ve ever seen a Bowling For Soup live set you’d know why. Except tonight it isn’t exactly all of Bowling For Soup but half of them, Erik and Jaret, oh and did I forget to mention it’s also acoustic.
It’s the introduction of Linus of Hollywood that really gets the crowd going. Jumping on stage just before Erik and Jaret are due to perform; he really knows how to work a crowd. Playing rift after rift, ranging from Slayer to Pondville (his band- I know I had to Google them too) he soon gets an already over excited and responsive crowd whooping for joy and over enthusiastically clapping him. His set includes an impromptu harmonica performance from Erik Chandler, teaching the crowd the chorus to his song ‘Here Comes The Summer’ and insisting they sing it with him- which of course they do, but the highlight of the set coming when Jaret joined him on stage for his final song. After asking the crowd to name a famous English actress to change the songs namesake too, the song is updated to ‘Kiera Knightley Poster’ much to the crowds delight, especially after Linus’ very amusing impression of an English accent prompts a lot of banter with the crowd.
It doesn’t take long for the stage to become a completely different setting, turning almost into a living room with soft lights, adjustable chairs and a nice table thrown in the mix too. As soon as Jaret and Erik hit the stage the atmosphere completely changes. This crowd have no inhibitions about throwing witty comments at these two guys, who in the completely intimate setting it is take everything in their stride. Starting the night off with hit ‘Almost’, just to test the crowds’ sound levels, they then go onto recall how they got lost in the ‘Mall’ earlier on in the day, to which the are promptly told it’s a shopping centre actually. All these two guys have with them on stage is a cheat book of all the songs that had been planned out acoustically and their trusty guitars, set lists are not even an option for these two. Songs come in the form of picking what they fancy and also requests shouted from the audience, at one point one guy from the crowd requested a Weezer song, which prompted witty comebacks from Erik about letting him do his job and insinuating that the guy that was shouting worked in a Fast Food restaurant.
It’s hard to think how these two guys have even contemplated condenseing 11 albums worth of songs into a two and a half hour set, but they manage it perfectly. With an eclectic mix of some of their biggest hits to some lesser known songs such as Trucker Hat, Hooray for Beer and My Wena, which is quite possibly one of the strangest songs to listen to live, let alone acoustically. They even get two girls up from the crowd to assist with the playing of the Kazoo and the tambourine to shake things up a bit. However, it’s the big hits like Punk Rock 101, Ohio (Come back to Texas), High School Never Ends and the unmistakable riff to Girls All The Bad Guys Want that make this crowd go alive and give Jaret an unmistakable twinkle in his eyes in return. As Erik said at the very beginning "I'm stoked to be in Stoke!" and quite frankly, everyone seems stoked to have him there too.
Nothing is lost at all in the acoustic versions of the songs, with the crowd making up for any instrumental gaps that there may be, but it seems you haven’t heard anything that will pleasantly surprise you until you’ve listened to 1985 and the wonderful When We Die in all their acoustic beauty.
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