Bowling for Soup: Reviews and photos

[Ross MacDonald and Karen Coughtrey were out again. – AC]

Sunday (April 7th) night was for the pop punk rockers in Ottawa at the Bronson Centre as Texas band Bowling For Soup brought their ‘Bowling For Soup Goes to Canada’ tour to town with support acts Toronto’s Anti-Queens and St. Catherines’ Rival Town.

Rival Town took the stage with their backs to the audience. The way they clapped their hands in unison over their heads one might have thought they were a teeny-bop boy-band, but no one would be fooled for long as they flipped around, their rock edge immediately present as they switched fully into punk rock mode to perform ‘The One Who Pushed’.

They had one rule for the audience “When we jump, you jump” they said and their hard rocking numbers had the crowd doing just that as Rival Town did an excellent job of their role of warming up the audience for the headliner.

As hard-edged punk as their sound in Rival Town presents a juxtaposition of sounds as many of their songs such as ‘Bridges’ are punctuated by moments that are more of a gentle pop sound, sometimes bordering on a ballad not unlike one of their idols Sum 41.

On that note, their song ‘A New Normal’ has a much softer sound. The song is very important to them and they dedicated it to anyone in the crowd that has lost someone.

They also played ‘Seasons’ their newest single which features vocals from Bowling For Soup’s Jaret Reddick but unfortunately the Ottawa crowd was not treated to him appearing on stage with Rival Town.

Toronto’s hard rocking ladies (and gentleman) The Anti-Queens were up next, appearing on stage to a chant of “Worse Than Death.”

Joint lead women Emily Bones and Valerie Knox gave a masterclass in the abilities of women to command attention, rule a room, and perform the hell out of a song; and drummer Zoe McMillan is one to watch as she rocked hardest of all.

They performed a mix of older tracks and favourites like ‘Leave Me Out’, but also many selections off their upcoming album Disenchanted. Most were upbeat but some have a more subdued depressive edge like ‘Love’s Heavy Burden’ a song about being in a toxic relationship.

They also performed ‘Doomed Again’, a song for which they’ve just released a video.

Unique to a women led band the crowd was treated to a diatribe about periods; the pitfalls of having to and the exultation of not having to deal with their time of the month on tour, a perfect lead in to their song ‘Miss Scarlett’.

Lone male band member Michael Amaral may not have contributed to the above conversation but did give the crowd an important reminder that while watching the wonders of Mother Nature during the eclipse they should think of all the women in their life because without them we are “F*ing nothing/non-existent.”

They ended the set much like it started with a sing along of their song ‘Worse Than Death’.

Then it was finally time for the headliners and self-proclaimed “Greatest Band In The Whole World,” Bowling For Soup, to take over the job of entertaining the lively crowd with their unique brand of pop-punk.

They appeared on stage to their own theme song, which very much sounds like the intro to any cartoon show, setting the tone for the rest of the evening and they had the crowd singing along right out of the gate with ‘Almost’ and ‘Out The Window’.

Of course they played some favourites ‘Today Is Going To Be A Great Day’ (The Phineas and Ferb theme), ‘Ohio (Come Back To Texas)’, and ‘High School Never Ends’.

At times the crowd would not be sure if they were at a concert or a comedy show as the band is skilled at lightening the mood, sometimes making the mood awkward, but always getting a good laugh. They joked about everything from putting poutine on hotdogs, Timbits keeping Canadians off drugs, to our safe injection sites, and glow stick ring toss.

They had nothing but nice things to say about Canada. The band, two months away from celebrating the group’s 30th birthday, shared that not only did they have countless great stories from being up here, but they chose to tour here because of their streaming numbers that had Canada in 3rd behind the US and UK, an impressive feat they said considering our much smaller population.

Ottawa was their 4th sold out show in a row, a feat they were celebrating since they’d never had a sold out show up here before. Hopefully the people of Sudbury came through and sold out the 5th show.

There was definitely a crowd participation element to the show as they led the audience in a so called “rave” and call-and-response sequences and they Rick-rolled the crowd with a photo break in the middle of ‘Punk 101’ as they travelled around the stage posing for photos to a background of Rick Astley’s ‘Never Going To Give You Up’.

There were serious moments to the show too, especially when Jaret spoke about depression:
“If it can happen to me, it can happen to anybody. You can ask anybody who knows me. I’m literally the happiest person in the world and I don’t know why it came to me and knocked on my door but it did. What that means is there’s somebody in this room tonight that feels alone and we need to let them know right now that they are not alone. Let’s let them know. Cause here is the thing, if you are not talking about yourself hurting, then you’re going to end up hurting other people like doing something dumb. And if you’re not hurting, be a fucking good listener.”

He of course then dedicated their song ‘Turbulence’ to anyone in the crowd feeling lonely and it wasn’t long before the audience was a sea of gently waving cell phone flashlights.

They ended the main set with their biggest hit, “The best song ever forever” according to them, ‘The Girl All The Bad Guys Want’. Then the band you can wave to, who take the guesswork out of encores, took a seat on the stage and relaxed while the crowd chanted “One More Song.” Before long they were up again performing ‘Trucker Hat’.

The night would end on a high note with members of Rival Town and The Anti-Queens joining them on stage for their cover of SR-71’s ‘1985’.

Bowling For Soup
Jaret Reddick – lead vocals, rhythm guitar
Chris Burney – lead guitar, backing vocals
Gary Wiseman – drums, percussion
Rob Felicetti – bass, backing vocals, acoustic guitar

The Anti-Queens
Emily Bones – Lead vocals / guitar
Valerie Knox – Lead guitar / Vocals
Michael Amaral – Bass
Zoe McMillan – Drums

Rival Town
Bryce Smith – guitar
Devon Forbes – drums
Jared Smith – keyboard
Stewart Drake – bass
Mike Julian – vocals
Collin Sheehan – guitar