Mark is married to Jo and is a 23 year old youth and schools worker based in South Cave (near Hull). Mark spent 4 years as a youth worker in Peterborough whilst studying for a degree in youth work & ministry with Oasis.
On Friday night Jo and myself headed to the 02 Academy in Sheffield to see Texan punk-rock band Bowling for Soup who were being supported by The Leftovers, MC Lars and Zebrahead.
I first saw Bowling for Soup live when I was 17 in Norwich and they were infact my first gig so seeing them is always special and with their new album ‘Sorry for Partyin” seeing them return to true-form (I shall blog on this album later this week) I was really excited about this gig and even more so when hearing that the incredible MC Lars would be supporting them.
So we queued up outside the venue at half 6 waiting for the doors to open surrounded by a mixture of students and 14 year old emo’s all eagerly awaiting the gig. Upon entering the venue which I’d last been in during a Ben Folds gig it seemed very full in comparison and the balcony was open this time so we headed upstairs to get the best view of the bands.
The Leftovers opened the gig with a set of their high energy pop-punk which was let down by unbalanced vocals but they were good and having since listened to them on their myspace page they are better live than on their empty-sounding studio recordings.
Next up was ‘post-punk laptop rapper’ MC Lars who I’ve been following for a few years primarily thanks to ‘Download this Song’ which he recorded with Jaret of Bowling for Soup. MC Lars gave us a high energy set of catchy rap songs including ‘Hot topic is not punk rock’ all accompanied by some fantastic video/animations on the screen behind before introducing Jaret and concluding his set with a live version of ‘Download this Song’.
Third up were Zebrahead who I first saw live (and disliked) with Bowling for Soup back in 2007 and once again I was not impressed by them, their performance although energetic was hindered by a constant bass buzz that had Jo and myself clutching our ears and despite their best efforts Zebrahead still don’t cut it for me…even with an awful cover of ‘Girlfriend’ by Avril Lavigne.
Finally Bowling for Soup came onto the stage kicking off their gig with ‘The Bitch Song’ which was the only song from ‘Let’s do it for Jonny’ that they performed…surprisingly missing Belgium out of their set list. They continued playing a fantastic set of songs from all their other albums including the songs ‘Punk Rock 101′, ‘Come back to Texas’, ‘Girl all the bad guys want’ and ‘This song sounds like a dance song’ before concluding their encore with ’1985′. Unusually they even played their song ‘Two Seater’ which I’ve never heard them do live.
Their set was, as usual filled with energy and funny remarks to each other and as always they invited everyone to their houses in Texas. Bowling for Soup are one of those bands who in spite of their commercial success always seem to have fun during their gigs and never seem bothered about messing around a little bit, making them one of the most fun bands to see live.
During the gig I managed to take a load of photos which I was really happy with, here’s a couple:
One of the band
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