Bowling For Soup with support from Less Than Jake and Vandoliers
at Utilita Arena, Cardiff UK
words and photos by Matt Sheppard

Bowling For Soup and Less Than Jake brought their co-headline ‘You Asked For It’ Tour for a stop over in Utilita Arena, Cardiff, which had completely sold out so the venue was packed with 7,500 fans.

Kicking off the evening was Vandoliers, hailing from Bowling For Soup's home state of Texas, bringing the epitome of American Hyped country music energy and swagger to the stage. Instantly engaging the South Wales crowd and probably gaining a few new fans (me included) with performances of their songs ‘Sixteen Years’ and ‘Every Saturday Night’, finishing with a cover of ‘500 Miles’ by The Proclaimers, which put everyone in a good mood.

First up of the two headliners was Less Than Jake, bringing their now near trademarked ska-infused punk rock sound. They opened their set with ‘Last One Out Of Liberty City’ from their near 25-year-old album Hello Rockview. With the crowd belting back the songs without missing a beat, it sums up what a dedicated fan base this band has built up over the years. With other songs on their setlist such as ‘Lie To Me’ and ‘The High Cost Of Low Living’, Less Than Jake brought a lot of visuals to the stage, including utilising a good number of smoke cannons and even a pair of 'whacky wailing inflatable tube men', they filled the arena with a whole lot of joy and good vibes. This gig felt like a party for all those attending.

The excitement for Bowling For Soup was palpable throughout the arena, heightened even more by a massive countdown clock timer 5 minutes from the start of the set, which kicked off with the aptly named 'BFS Theme’, which sparked the crowd into a repeating chant of “BOWLING FOR SOUP” over and over until the quartet finally came out on stage. Members Jaret Reddick, Chris Burney, Gary Wiseman, and Rob Felicetti came out to resounding cheers from the crowd, opening with ‘Emily’.

With the band cracking jokes throughout the set between songs, going to get beers from their on-stage bar and just having a good time, it was evident they love doing this. Even more so considering this tour represents 30 years of the band, since forming in 1994 in Wichita Falls, Texas. This sold-out Cardiff arena show was definitively the largest show Bowling For Soup has ever headlined. This was a special show for the band having reached such a milestone. Notable mentions from their setlist include ‘Ohio (Come Back to Texas)’ where the support band Vandoliers came out to assist, ‘Today Is Gonna Be a Great Day’, written for the popular children's TV show 'Fineas & Ferb's theme song, for which the band Punk Rock Factory made a special one-off appearance to perform this song alongside them. The set included other fan favourites such as ‘High School Never Ends’, ‘Girl All The Bad Guys Want’, and ‘Almost’. Their encore finished with their now-famous cover of SR-71’s ‘1985’.

This night was an evening of pure nostalgia and joy for the fans to be transported back to the early 2000's for Bowling For Soup's heyday, for the older fans to forget their knees will probably hurt from standing for too long, and for new fans to experience BFS like other fans might've done decades ago. This was a testament to the power of live music just to forget the worries of the outside world for a while and just have fun.

BOWLING FOR SOUP: CARDIFF, UK

VANDOLIERS

LESS THAN JAKE

BOWLING FOR SOUP