Bowling for soup acoustic sing-a-long show gig review – The Leadmill Sheffield.

Bowling for soup acoustic singalong with Jaret & Rob. With support from Don’t Panics Ted Felicetti and Lacey. The Leadmill, Sheffield 24/5/22.

Tonight I’m at the Leadmill in Sheffield. A gem of a venue that is unfortunately under threat of closure, having been served an eviction notice by the landlords. I do hope it continues as I cannot say enough good things about the venue and its staff.

Tonight the venue is fully seated for an acoustic event. First to the stage are alternative rock band Lacey from Nottingham. Well it’s actually just 3 of them (Josh, Dave & Graz), complete with acoustic guitars. Lacey do a great set of original songs and sound fantastic. At one point they get us to do a singalong to a variety of songs and then score us compared to other venues on the tour, obviously this encourages everyone to join in.

Then we have Ted Felicetti from Don’t Panic, a pop punk band from Pennsylvania. Ted is also the brother of Rob from Bowling for soup. There’s no Don’t Panic today, just Ted, but he does a sterling job by himself, he also has support from Graz & Dave on a couple of songs. He chats to the crowd in between songs and charms us all completely. As it’s an acoustic event, the change over between acts is very small, so it’s not long at all before two bar stools and a table are put at the front of the stage for Jaret & Rob.

Bowling for soup acoustic sing-a-long show gig review – The Leadmill Sheffield.

At the back of the stage, Daniel Cotton can be spotted, an English lad that generally works on bowling for soup UK tours and keeps the drinks flowing on stage. Tonight it’s beer for Rob and Jaret is drinking Delicious Garys, a drink named after BFS drummer Gary Wiseman. There are only 2 members of bowling for soup here for this tour, drummer Gary and guitarist Chris have stayed in the states.

Tonight we have singer / guitarist Jaret Reddick and reasonably new bass player Rob Felicetti. Jaret & Rob take to the stage to rapturous applause and get straight into Trucker Hat, which is one of my personal favourites. In between every song Jaret & Rob chat and tell us stories, they probably spend as long talking as they do singing. Now if you are expecting good, clean, wholesome jokes you are at the wrong gig. There’s swearing and rude jokes and the crowd love it. Jaret tells the best stories and gets distracted telling them, so they take many twists and turns before he finishes the story.

They work through the setlist of well known and much loved songs. New single I wanna be Brad Pitt goes down well and everyone sings along. Jaret then tells us that Gary’s (BFS drummer) mum is in the audience and the audience start to sing Gary’s Mom to the tune of Stacys Mom. Jaret then plays Stacys Mom, but changes it to Garys Mom. Gary’s mum is clearly delighted and stands up so we can all see her and enjoys her moment.

Official band merch at Amazon.

Then Rob needs a wee, apparently he has to leave the stage during every gig for a wee, so Jaret sings a fabulous version of Should I Stay or Should Go, complete with kazoo solo. During lockdown Jaret did a lot of online shows where he used a kazoo and it became a bit of a thing, you could even buy a ‘Jaret Kazoo crue’ kazoo at the merch desk. Rob returns to the stage and Jaret nips of for a wee and Rob sings freebird! With both singers back on the stage it’s into the theme from Phineas and Ferb, you did know they did that, right? Later, Jaret is retuning his guitar, so Rob jokes he’ll play wonderwall, but doesn’t know the words, so the audience start to sing it, he then joins in on guitar.

The evening ends with 1985 and everyone is on their feet (remember it was seated) and singing along. JR & Rob get a thunderous applause and that’s the end of a very enjoyable evening. If you have never seen them live, I highly recommend it. S

Setlist

1. Trucker Hat
2. Ohio (Come Back to Texas)
3. I Wanna Be Brad Pitt
4. The Bitch Song
5. Turbulence
6. Stacy’s Mom(Fountains of Wayne cover)
7. Almost
8. Should I Stay or Should I Go(The Clash cover)
9. Wonderwall(Oasis cover)
10. Today Is Gonna Be a Great Day
11. Emily
12. Royal Family(Jaret Reddick song)
13. Punk Rock 101
14. Friends o’ Mine
15. Belgium
16. Girl All the Bad Guys Want
17. 1985(SR‐71 cover)

Faye

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