Bowling For Soup
September 19, 2015
Roxy Theater- Los Angeles, CA
Longtime friends Bowling For Soup and The Dollyrots have once again teamed up for a US tour. This was a special tour for Bowling For Soup as they were celebrating their 21st anniversary and called their tour, the Finally Legal Tour. Even hours before doors opened, fans were forming a line, anxiously waiting to get inside the venue. The Roxy Theatre on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood was a night for celebration.
Support came from Los Angeles pop punk duo, The Dollyrots plus a touring drummer in which this time was Rikki Styxx. Right before they came on, it was announced that the show would be recorded for an upcoming live album and DVD to be released later this year. They released their newest album Barefoot and Pregnant in February 2014 and were regularly touring in support for their new album. The Dollyrots came on stage and were greeted by the audience whether they had heard of them or not even though there were quite a number of their fans in attendance telling from fans wearing their merchandise. The Dollyrots started their show with My Best Friend’s Hot. Bassist/lead vocalist Kelly Ogden has a nice punk voice to add to the music while husband of Ogden, Luis Cabezas handled guitars and backup vocals. The band has a nice energetic vibe as Ogden and Cabezas would run around on stage and jump. Their setlist included songs from four their six albums including: Kick Me to the Curb, Brand New Key, Twist Me to the Left, and Starting Over. Throughout the show, Ogden would pause to talk about life on the road. Stories from coming down from the San Francisco show and driving on the I-5 seeing all the cows and referred to it literally as “depressing shit”. One of the heart-warming stories was when Ogden talk about rescuing a baby bird and keeping it as a pet on the road as it was fed and taken care of. She also made note on how it is to raise her and Cabezas’ firstborn son while on tour. Just over halfway into the set, Ogden had to pause and tell the crowd that they’ve played to better crowds like Portland just a few days prior due to the majority of fans just standing around. As the show continued, songs from the new album made an appearance to give current and new fans a listen. Some of the new songs were: Get Weird, Bury Me In Ireland, and the album opener Come and Get It. Ogden made another pause to tell the crowd that she always dedicates the song Jackie Chan to her mother because she has a huge crush on the actor. This song has a more rock vibe and helped get the crowd going and screaming. For the final song, The Dollyrots played Because I’m awesome and were joined onstage by their merch seller wearing a rabbit headpiece and holding a pony stick. The Dollyrots finished the show and fans screamed at what was a good show. They had to have made many new fans as they could be heard talking about the band just after The Dollyrots left the stage.
Bowling For Soup are no strangers to people who know their pop punk bands or even punk rock in general. The venue was already packed with fans and they screamed with joy as the curtains lifted to reveal guitarist Chris Burney dry-humping lead vocalist and guitarist Jaret Reddick. They started the show with Almost and fans were already jumping, screaming, and singing along. Bowling For Soup has a nice stage presence that revolves around the band members moving around and joking with each other. Some of the jokes thrown around were when Reddick would make fun of his own weight gain claiming he’s pregnant with a baby elephant. Fans seemed to enjoy the jokes as the venue was filled with laughter. Bowling For Soup had a nice setlist going on as they played songs from throughout their career like: High School Never Ends, Two-Seater, Punk Rock 101, My Wena, and My Hometown. With their music having a pop punk vibe, fans had no problem jumping, dancing, and singing along to every song. A few songs into their set, Reddick noticed a fan wearing overalls, a Pantera shirt, and to top it off, a Donatello mask from TMNT. He brought the fan on stage and the fan seemed to have trouble standing still so there was a possibility of him being intoxicated. The fan asked Reddick to sign his necklace in the shape of a classic dog bone. Reddick was happy to do so, but ended up scribbling his signature on it due to the fan not standing still even after Reddick asked him to stand still multiple times. In between songs, Reddick and Burney would continuously taunt each other with dick jokes and weight jokes which the crowd laughed at knowing it was all in good fun. Reddick would also perform tricks with guitar picks in that he would throw them at his forehead and they would perfectly stick due to him being sweaty. Reddick made note to the crowd that this next song is not originally their song, but fans have made it that way so they went ahead and played the fan-favorite Stacey’s Mom. One of the more fun songs on the set was when Bowling For Soup played the theme song to the cartoon, Phineas and Ferb called Today Is Gonna Be a Great Day. After that, Reddick told the crowd this next song is about having fun at a rock and roll concert. The song was called The Last Rock Show and it was the craziest song of the night as fans got wild and some shoving commenced and even a miniature mosh pit broke out. What made the song even more awesome was when Kelly Ogden and Rikki Styxx of The Dollyrots came out to crowd surf during the song which ended up in failure as fans didn’t seem to know how to act during a crowd surf and carry the surfer on top of the fans. Towards the end of the show, the band took a break to pose altogether for fans while David Lee Roth‘s Yankee Rose played in the background. The band finished with Girl All the Bad Guys Want and left the stage to fans that have yet to get enough of the band. Burney sneakily made his way to the stage and told the crowd that their slogan for encores is “Soup, there it is!”. He left the stage and surely enough, the fans started chanting “Soup, there it is!” repeatedly for a bit before Bowling For Soup came back out to play some encores. The first two encores were Belgium followed by The Bitch Song. To end the night, Bowling For Soup played their most famous song, their SR-71 cover of 1985. The band let the fans sing the chorus for them as they drank their beers and went back to playing the rest of the song where fans had been singing the whole song anyway like one big happy family. Bowling For Soup left the stage once again and the fans cheered them on as they were extremely happy to have seen them and will be anxiously waiting for them to return.
Review by: Misael Ruiz
Bowling For Soup
Dollyrats