Strike!
Bowling For Soup prove a popular headliner on the 2nd stage at Guilfest and probably get the biggest crowd of the weekend on this stage.
You know what you’re going to get with Bowling for Soup, a set full of light hearted and lightweight pop punk songs all delivered with a good dollop of fun and that’s exactly what they give the crowd today. The exchanges with the crowd between songs, mainly instigated by singer Jaret, are elongated but very amusing and cover a whole host of topics. The music is tight but it’s really nothing special, yet they deliver it with such fun and gusto that you can’t help but go along with them.
The crowd join in at every given opportunity, of which there are plenty and none more so than on their cover of Britney’s ‘One More Time’. Guitarist Chris Burney constantly flicks plectrums up over his back, catches them and throws them into the crowd and it all just adds to the entertainment. Predictably ‘Highschool Never Ends’ goes down a storm and just when you think they’ve exhausted the tricks they stop mid-song to pose for photographs! It’s all great fun and a great way to end the day.
They finish off with ‘When We Die’ and crowd favourite ‘1985’ and leave to wild applause, perhaps proving that sometimes you don’t have to be profound or make the music intricate and complicated to have an impact. I still wouldn’t buy the records but I’d happily go and see them again as for pure entertainment there’s no one to touch them this weekend.