Earlier this year Bowling For Soup did a big tour to celebrate 20 years of a big album – A Hangover You Don’t Deserve (we covered the Wolverhampton show). Hangover was big in a couple of respects. It’s 18 songs in length and it’s arguably their big “breakthrough” album that either gave BFS the push they needed or hit at just the right time when they were just about there anyway. Either way the decision to go on the road and play the whole damn thing was pretty brave, especially when they’ve not played some of the songs live in… erm… 20 years. Or “ever” for Rob who was probably still in nappies when it was released.
As a result of the beefy size of the original album, this live rendition is also busting at the seams as it includes all 18 songs, plus the other numbers played on the live shows, plus every single syllable of the band’s waffle from between (and sometimes during) the songs. This is as un-dubbed a live album as you’re going to hear, as you can tell by Jaret missing some of the lyrics on “Highschool Never Ends” as Rob was hitting him in the balls with his guitar. And this is only one incident that you’re possibly glad was only captured in audio and not in glorious Technicolor.
The show recorded was the Manchester one so it will obviously be a great souvenir for anyone who was there, especially Kirsty who was dragged on stage to “spin the wheel” halfway through. There is definitely a recording error which creeps up throughout as Jaret refers to Manchester as the best city they’ve ever played when everyone who’s seen them in Glasgow knows for a fact that it’s us who are the best audience. I mean, he tells us every time they hit the Academy.
But that’s one of the main plus points of this album. It’s recorded at one show and it’s warts n’ all. As an additional bonus, the between-song chatter is in separate tracks so once you’ve listened to the whole thing once or twice you can opt to skip them easily and get to the actual songs. This is a huge benefit as BFS are wont to go off on multiple tangents which are great when you’re at the gig, but you likely don’t want to hear them every time you pop the album on.
Despite focusing on a single studio album, the strength of that release plus the supporting songs makes for a good live show. The recording is solid and features the audience in fine voice, it gets across that a BFS live show is more than just a bunch of dudes playing some songs, and if it ever gets a vinyl release I suspect it’ll need three discs.
Update: the band’s PR emailed me after the review went live to point out that pre-sales of the vinyl and CD versions are available and… yes, the vinyl is on three discs!
If you’ve not experienced the japes of a Bowling For Soup gig before, then a) buy a ticket for the next one and b) listen to this to get warmed up beforehand.
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A Hangover You Definitely Deserve (Live) is out on October 24th
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