A packed night at the Barrowland, but surprisingly there was no queue outside when I arrived just early enough to catch the start of The Bar Stool Preachers. The only home-grown band on the bill (almost – they’re from London), their infectious brand of ska, two-tone, and pop-punk made them about the best opening band you could hope for.
There was a core of fans near the front, and not a small one either, who obviously knew the material already. Pogoing to some songs and singing their hearts out to others, they were there to do exactly as singer TJ kept insisting: “Make this the night of your lives… because you can!” His between-song chat was dotted with subtle positive messages, which I liked, and some nice communication, such as when TJ praised the headliners: “We’re all here to see them.” A voice in the audience shouted back, “We’re here for you!” to which he responded, “I’m actually here for The Bouncing Souls.”
With six members (nine for their final track, as three masked Aquabats joined them), they had a very full sound and great reserves of energy, which they fed to the crowd for their crammed thirty-minute set. I couldn’t name a song as the band were new to me, but I loved them. Fortunately, they’re touring again towards the end of the year, so anyone who missed them (or enjoyed the show tonight) can have even more fun in October and November!
My last encounter with the lunacy that is a live The Aquabats! show was back in 2018 when they supported Bowling For Soup. That show wasn’t even a hint at what was to be expected this evening. Taking The Bar Stool Preachers’ six members, finding those numbers wanting, and raising the stake to eight musicians, there was barely enough room for them on stage, with one guitarist being pushed back and mingling with the amps.
So, you have eight madmen wearing knock-off 1960s Batman costumes, they have a brass section, and they’re about to launch into a set of ska-punk madness. What else do you need? A load of inflatable sharks, apparently, launched into the audience as the band came on stage. All this and we’ve not heard a single note yet. Despite “The Shark Attack!” being over after a couple of minutes, the bitey sea creatures continued to dive around through the next couple of songs until they were joined by inflatable pizzas. I mean… who even thought of making inflatable pizzas?
Not content with having them float around during their set, singer TJ and bassist Bungle from our opening band were tasked with surfing the crowd from front to back while balanced precariously on a pair of pizza slices. And there’s the weirdest sentence I’ll type this week. Probably. Unfortunately, they didn’t make it more than about halfway when everyone around me dropped them, despite my own best efforts to keep them aloft. It definitely wasn’t my fault.
At least nobody tried to deep-fry the pizza, this being Glasgow, though someone in front of me captured and deflated both a shark and a pizza to take home afterwards. Their set was non-stop madness and definitely eclipsed the one back in 2018. This is apparently the first time they’ve hit the UK two times in two years (having played Slam Dunk 2025), and here’s hoping they can make it three for three!
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Main support The Bouncing Souls arrived next. Hailing from “Noo Joizie” (and don’t you forget it), they only had four band members. Seriously, weren’t they watching the earlier bands? Having said that, it seems you don’t need a near-orchestra to get a pit going.
Their style is very much “short, sharp shock,” with quickfire numbers to blast the crowd before moving onto the next song, and a decent pit opened up quite early on. Compared to the first two bands, they were relatively low-key. No pizazz (or pizzas), not a lot of audience chat, and overall a more “sedate” performance given that TBSP and The Aquabats were running around like loons and playing games. The Bouncing Souls sang their songs and got on with it.
The song which punched hardest was their anthem “East Coast! Fuck You!”, which caused carnage for its very brief running time. There’s no denying that an ever-increasing number of audience members were getting into each band, with the pit getting larger as time went on, but I found The Bouncing Souls a little anonymous compared to the two bands who’d preceded them. Perhaps because I’m not familiar with their material, as a non-fan nothing really pulled me in as it did with the others. TJ, you might be flattered or you might be annoyed, but I preferred your set to the one played by one of your favourite acts.
Around 9:15, Less Than Jake arrived to stamp their 90-minute boot down on the night. Another band I’d last seen with Bowling For Soup (only two years ago this time), I had an idea of what to expect, but not the extent of it. I was about halfway back in the audience and the pit just erupted when they kicked into “Nervous In The Alley”.
There were a few arseholes just shoving people out of their way to get to the action – seriously, you’re like the pricks who force their way through traffic, tailgate, and end up at the same red light three seconds before everyone else – but on the whole, the madness was well-contained and never-ending. I bet a few people woke up this morning feeling like their gym instructor had been an absolute sadist.
You can tell they’re hanging onto their skate-punk roots with the number of songs declared as “this one rips,” and Chris DeMakes is a great frontman. Witty yet humble, and genuinely funny, his between-song patter was very much on the ball. Roger Lima seems to sing a fair bit as well, not just as a backing singer, and “Lie To Me” was an early highlight. Buddy Schaub’s trombone adds a lot to their sound and fits in so well with the jangly rhythm guitar; every song is something you can pogo, mosh, or jig to. He’s also constantly on the go even when not playing, including nicking one of the security staff’s sets of headphones for a while. I still wonder what they talk about to each other on those things.
With this being the last date on the tour, Less Than Jake pulled out all the stops, pumping banger after banger out at the crowd. “All My Best Friends Are Metalheads” remains a personal favourite, though I almost find it concerning that the opening recorded speech (from 1967) could have been broadcast yesterday, given that times haven’t changed anywhere near enough. Still, Less Than Jake are on our side. These things help. “Walking Pipebomb”, the more sedate “The Rest Of My Life”, and the bouncy “Sunny Side” proved that the new material is still on a par with the old. This was a great mix of tunes.
The encore was a full-on blast made up of “Brightest Bulb”, “Look What Happened”, and the total knees-up happiness of “Gainesville Rock City”. To say “the crowd went wild” would be an understatement.
An absolutely packed night with four very talented bands, but I’m going to be contentious here. Much as our hosts were on fire, much as The Bouncing Souls had the audience in the palms of their hands, and much as The Aquabats were mental… The Bar Stool Preachers stole the show for me. Maybe it’s the “holy shit, what an opener” factor, but they rattled something within me in just the right way.
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Pics by Watchmaker Studios
