Less Than Jake, Bowling For Soup, Zebrahead @ The Hi-Fi Bar, Melbourne (26/02/2014)
I often think music chooses people, and people don’t entirely choose their music. Perhaps there is an uncontrollable animus within each of us that guides everyone’s ears toward particular sounds or genres. Millions adore gargantuan raving throngs that heave without pause to rhythmic dance and electronic music, while others melancholically shoe-gaze to gloomy grunge, or reservedly revel in classically orchestral mind blowers. All of us are welcomed to enjoy anything we like within the ever-broadening spectrum of music in all it’s unmitigated glory, but if you don’t like Less Than Jake, then I harbour a deep and pitied sorrow for you.
Their recent Sidewave in Melbourne only further cemented that they may very well be the Earth’s most fun band. And with Bowling For Soup, and Zebrahead as supports, those who attended were wonderfully beset with a new clutch of joyous memories to take home and enjoy far longer than any tour shirt could ever last (unless you got too pissed at the gig, or suffered a head injury while crowd surfing).
Zebrahead kicked off the night with a solid rendition of mostly new material from their latest album Call Your Friends. Their arguably dated blend of Nu-Metal rap and sugary pop punk has long since proven to annoy the shit out of some who have listened to it. Conversely, all the boys and girls bunched at the barricades fist pumping and belting out every word of every song were, rather evidently, never some of those people. Highlights included a chugging game between back up singer/ onstage barman/ drunk Justin, and a hefty and excited punter, and a Melbourne-themed shanty beer tune in which the crowd more than merrily joined. Zebrahead may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but they served as an exciting and funny opener that further warmed up an already jolly crowd.
Truth be told, I’d known very little about Bowling For Soup before this particular gig beyond the fact that they had a remarkably obese guitarist, and were possibly English. I was absolutely right about Guitarist Chris Burney’s weight, but incredibly incorrect about them being from somewhere in England. In my defence, I read about them once in Kerrang! while hopelessly stoned in a North London convenience store back in 2006. Yes, yes, now you see how my confusion is valid…
Digressions aside, Chris doesn’t give a fuck about his weight, so neither should anyone else, and BFS are actually from Texas. They’re also the funniest band I’ve ever seen live. Hands. The fuck. Down. I don’t wish to be the guy that toils his readers and friends with second hand jokes after a stand up gig or comical event, so don’t expect verbatim rehashes of the possibly millions of jokes BFS freely unleashed on the crowd during their set in this review. To instead summarize, there was much hilarity involving on stage pre-show pizza farts, murder and fence post rape jibes at a mouthy punters expense, the song Belgium having a convoluted back story about how a New Zealand girl that left Gary the bassist for her religious studies tutor used to fuck the shit out of him, and of course regaling the audience with how the entire planet thinks they wrote Stacy’s Mom by Fountains Of Wayne. They didn’t, but they played it anyway and the crowd went off their fucking heads. They also broke mid-song for an opportunity to pose for photos, with a back up ditty that explained what was happening playing chipperly over the PA.
Bowling For Soup have been a band for twenty years, and may genuinely give less of a fuck about what every thinks more than any one else on earth that’s in a band. They embrace the detest critics have always harboured for them, and continue to write catchy, vulgar, pop-punk anthems with a huge shit-eating grin slapped across their faces. Songs squeezed between their jokes included Girl All The Bad Guys Want, High School Never Ends, Ohio (which is a song about Texas, naturally), Punk Rock 101, The theme to Phineas And Ferb, and 1985. An hysterically funny evening out that made a massive fan out of this reviewer by the end of their set.
I’ve already written a massive review for Less Than Jake this week because I saw them play at Soundwave. That on top of the fact I gave these wonderful bastards such a brilliant intro just before means I’m going to lazily not write many words about how awesome they were at The HiFi for about the eight millionth time. I want to go drink beer, and I know that if they knew this they would agree I should go do that and not keep typing this review about them. They played heaps of Less Than Jake songs and they were all equally fun, head banging, circle pit inducing party war cries. There was a fuck load of beer spilled, and infamously salacious audience participation with aplomb (no girl that attractive would sniff that many fat blokes’ arm pits anywhere else in the known universe except a LTJ gig). The whole night kicked ass, and everyone there had some of the most fun you can have with out touching someone else’s sex organs. Come back soon, you spectacular bastards. Right, off to buy a slab. Life is good.
Todd Gingell
@gingerly_done
Their recent Sidewave in Melbourne only further cemented that they may very well be the Earth’s most fun band. And with Bowling For Soup, and Zebrahead as supports, those who attended were wonderfully beset with a new clutch of joyous memories to take home and enjoy far longer than any tour shirt could ever last (unless you got too pissed at the gig, or suffered a head injury while crowd surfing).
Zebrahead kicked off the night with a solid rendition of mostly new material from their latest album Call Your Friends. Their arguably dated blend of Nu-Metal rap and sugary pop punk has long since proven to annoy the shit out of some who have listened to it. Conversely, all the boys and girls bunched at the barricades fist pumping and belting out every word of every song were, rather evidently, never some of those people. Highlights included a chugging game between back up singer/ onstage barman/ drunk Justin, and a hefty and excited punter, and a Melbourne-themed shanty beer tune in which the crowd more than merrily joined. Zebrahead may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but they served as an exciting and funny opener that further warmed up an already jolly crowd.
Truth be told, I’d known very little about Bowling For Soup before this particular gig beyond the fact that they had a remarkably obese guitarist, and were possibly English. I was absolutely right about Guitarist Chris Burney’s weight, but incredibly incorrect about them being from somewhere in England. In my defence, I read about them once in Kerrang! while hopelessly stoned in a North London convenience store back in 2006. Yes, yes, now you see how my confusion is valid…
Digressions aside, Chris doesn’t give a fuck about his weight, so neither should anyone else, and BFS are actually from Texas. They’re also the funniest band I’ve ever seen live. Hands. The fuck. Down. I don’t wish to be the guy that toils his readers and friends with second hand jokes after a stand up gig or comical event, so don’t expect verbatim rehashes of the possibly millions of jokes BFS freely unleashed on the crowd during their set in this review. To instead summarize, there was much hilarity involving on stage pre-show pizza farts, murder and fence post rape jibes at a mouthy punters expense, the song Belgium having a convoluted back story about how a New Zealand girl that left Gary the bassist for her religious studies tutor used to fuck the shit out of him, and of course regaling the audience with how the entire planet thinks they wrote Stacy’s Mom by Fountains Of Wayne. They didn’t, but they played it anyway and the crowd went off their fucking heads. They also broke mid-song for an opportunity to pose for photos, with a back up ditty that explained what was happening playing chipperly over the PA.
Bowling For Soup have been a band for twenty years, and may genuinely give less of a fuck about what every thinks more than any one else on earth that’s in a band. They embrace the detest critics have always harboured for them, and continue to write catchy, vulgar, pop-punk anthems with a huge shit-eating grin slapped across their faces. Songs squeezed between their jokes included Girl All The Bad Guys Want, High School Never Ends, Ohio (which is a song about Texas, naturally), Punk Rock 101, The theme to Phineas And Ferb, and 1985. An hysterically funny evening out that made a massive fan out of this reviewer by the end of their set.
I’ve already written a massive review for Less Than Jake this week because I saw them play at Soundwave. That on top of the fact I gave these wonderful bastards such a brilliant intro just before means I’m going to lazily not write many words about how awesome they were at The HiFi for about the eight millionth time. I want to go drink beer, and I know that if they knew this they would agree I should go do that and not keep typing this review about them. They played heaps of Less Than Jake songs and they were all equally fun, head banging, circle pit inducing party war cries. There was a fuck load of beer spilled, and infamously salacious audience participation with aplomb (no girl that attractive would sniff that many fat blokes’ arm pits anywhere else in the known universe except a LTJ gig). The whole night kicked ass, and everyone there had some of the most fun you can have with out touching someone else’s sex organs. Come back soon, you spectacular bastards. Right, off to buy a slab. Life is good.
Todd Gingell
@gingerly_done