BOWLING FOR SOUP X FRANK TURNER: BRISBANE CONCERT REVIEW
- May 6
- 18 min read
If you would have told my teenage self that the band that I was watching on RAGE on a Sunday morning while I ate my cereal, would in 20 years be on a PR and Media list for a company I created I would have told you, you were a crazy person. But here we are, reporting on not only Bowling For Soup but also Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls. With hour-long sets each, and the support set from Talk Heavy to cover, there is a lot of mayhem to cover, so let's jump right in. In past shows at The Tivoli I have
noted that the majority of the crowd will normally arrive late or linger at the bar for the earlier parts of the evening and steadily fill up as the night progresses, however, to my pleasant surprise, on May 2nd this wasn't the case at all, with both upstairs and floor area packed from the beginning I had high expectations from this crowd and I wasn't disappointed. "How ya's all goin?" Talk Heavy Vocalist Matt asked, starting off the nights festivities to ruckus applause. "How ya's all going but even louder. That's pretty bloody good... We're Talk Heavy from Brisbane." Talk Heavy had me hooked from the beginning with a clean and energetic sound that had the pit swaying as they made their way through Something Cool. "This song is about wrestling." Stepping into their stride and shaking off the nerves during The Montreal Screwjob,
Talk Heavy jumped into the guitar solo with vigour while Matt attacked the microphone with precision. I will admit my sight was quite often drawn to the drumming prowess of Jared as he has a flamboyant style of playing that draws attention. "Thanks Mates. You're all so lovely and came out so early. It's awesome. Cheer really loudly for yourselves... This one is called Die 4 U." I was impressed by how receptive the crowd were to Talk Heavy, hanging on their every word and interacting with the band between songs. While Talk Heavy aren't inclined to move around the stage a huge amount, they still draw attention with the energy they display as they play their instruments. "Fuck yeah Talk Heavy" shouted a member of the crowd. "Yeah. Fuck yeah Talk Heavy." "This is the moment of the set that we like to go around and say a fun fact about each other. Starting
with you guys. From the back forward and all at the same time. If you have a fun fact, one, two, three, go. (Crowd shouts incoherently) Wow, me too. that's crazy. I'm actually from there as well. (Crowd laughs) How's everyone going tonight? Is everyone safe? Is everyone having fun? (Crowd cheers) Hell yeah. I didn't hear what you said but hell yeah dude. This next one is about love. How good is love? Pretty epic. Hot take, love rules." As Talk Heavy moved into Wedding Bands the lights on the stage moved to soft pinks and purples, matching the mood. The crowd swayed to the rhythm. "Who's ready to hear a new one?" David Drayman's iconic entranced played making the crowd erupt in laughter. "Not that. Not that" laughed Matt. "Wait do it again. But make it look like I'm doing it. Are you convinced. Are
you totally convinced? Hell yeah baby, this whole set's on playback... This one is called We Find It. It will be on our new album out later this year or next year." The track shifted into a crowd sing-a-long before finishing on a breakdown and exuberant cheers. "We've got two songs for you...This one's called Stand Down." "Well that's it. You have reached the end. Thanks so much for coming early. Give yourselves a big cheer. It seriously means the world. This is fucking awesome." "This one is called Hoping The Middle... Everyone wave bye bye. Bye bye." Finishing the set on a high point with a highly interactive band-to-crowd mimic, Talk Heavy left the stage to a round of applause and a long drive to Sydney in front of them.
Next up for the night were co-headliners, Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls. Entering the stage to ear-splitting cheers the band took their places the crowd immediately screaming along with I Still Believe, Frank scooting along the stage. The room immediately hit energy level 1000. "How are you doing Brisbane? Is everyone fucking ready?" Taking an ear plug out to hear the true volume of the crowd I was astounded to hear the group, matching or over taking the sound of the band as they screamed the lyrics to the stage. As the track wound down the crowd started a wave along. "Alright, let's get this fucking party started." After watching this set, Frank for me is a prime example of the recording not holding a flame
to what the sound, energy and experience is live and you see the true intention behind the music. Jumping straight into Try This At Home, Never Mind The Back Problems and Photosynthesis we were off again. The crowd chanting, jumping, clapping and dancing as the band moved around the stage. "I want to you to get your dancing shoes on and get fucking moving. Let's go." "Good evening Brisbane (crowd cheers) Welcome to our part of the show. My name's Frank Turner and this is my band The Sleeping Souls. We've come all the way from England just to see you... Listen up friends. I've been doing this a long time and we are going to keep it real. Growing up I used to see shows, back in London town, hardcore and punk show and my favourite thing that they used to do, some of you know about, and some of you don't, but we are all going to do it together. My friends, it is called a circle pit. So please make a big circle. A really big circle in the middle. That's a fucking Melbourne circle. A bigger circle. Everybody step back, everybody step back. That's good. Alright! The people on the edge of the circle, I'd like you to begin walking slowly around in a circle. Really slowly, like you are on a Sunday afternoon stroll with your Grandma. Keep it real slow and we will build up to it. The most important part of this is that everyone looks after each other. Everyone takes care of each other." The crowd slowly danced
their way around the circle as the watchers continued to sing the lyrics. "Faster. Faster." until the song kicked in properly and the group ran at speed. Throughout this set there were several periods where I looked down into the crowd and saw older people who had clearly never been in a pit situation before taking part for the first time, and while there was a clear nervousness there was also an excitement and genuine joy that filled the air in these moments as a once in a lift time memory was formed. "Brisbane it is excellent to be back. Are you having fun? I should preface this show by stating that you are in the presence of five extremely jet lagged people. I have no idea what day it is. Where we are. Or which way is up. It doesn't matter because we get to have fun anyway. Friends I count my shows and this is show number 3147... This next song is a punk rock song about falling in love in a record store. This song is called Girl From The Record Shop." As the energy in room lifted higher again the pit turned to a bounce pit and maintaining the hype as "Alright Brisbane, this is an anti-fascist song" had the crowd screaming along to 1933 with Frank gesturing for a wall of death to open from the push-pit that had formed. I would be lying if I said I wasn't surprised by seeing the wall of
death, but it filled me with a level of joy I cannot properly express. No Thank You for the Music had the crowd joining in a clap along. Watching the band bounce around the stage I genuinely wouldn't have known they were not feeling great had they not mentioned it previously. "There used to be another thing that we did at the corner of a circle pit and some of you are lining up for it now, and it is called a wall of death. Front to back. Front to back. Two teams. Split it in half. All the way back. Alright. Hold on a second. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is a punk-rock show right? (crowd cheers) Now call me an idealist, but I always thought that word meant more than just making loud music. It means something about acceptance. It means something about community. Something about consideration right? So friends we welcome you to a wall of death. But instead, we're going to do a wall of hugs. You're going to run into the middle and hug someone you don't know. Are you ready? Clap them in." The crowd lit up with pure joy as the wall of hugs took place, strangers embracing one another as they jumped to the beat. "Listen friends, before I play this next song, I want to put some rumours, some evil rumours to rest. Yes it's true this is an acoustic guitar. I have dabbled in folk music. And I'm about to dabble in it
again. And there's nothing you can do to stop me. Friends, I know why you're scared. This is an instrument that has been used for great and terrible acts of evil. But I promise you that isn't what is about to happen right now. This song is about making art for the right reasons. This song is called The Ballad of Me and My Friends." The crowd's energy remained high as it made its way through the roller coaster of energy shift that is If I Ever Stay, Recovery and Long Live The Queen. "We are really nice people. Really fucking nice people.And because we are so nice, we know every single last one of you came just to see us. Nobody else. But because we are so nice, we decided to let some fans of ours have a go at the stage after we're done. I understand you are all planning leaving the minute we are finished, am I correct? Yes. Good. I thought as much. The thing is you shouldn't do that right, you should have better manners than that and not roast them. You see my friends
are going to come up here and give it a go. They are going to do their very best. And I think they are quite good. They are a brand new band (Frank and crowd laughs) out of Dallas Texas. I think it would be good manners Brisbane for you guys to give them at least two songs. Yep. Stick around for two songs. Don't leave. Will you do that for me? I am of course being an arsehole. It is a great tour of my life and now I get to be on tour with one of my favourite bands. Please make a lot of noise for the incomparable Bowling For Soup. The idea for this tour started at Good Things festival last year. We all had a good time. I was thinking of going back. Me too. And that is how tours are organises fans. It's that easy. So I would like to dedicate this song to Jaret, Rob, Gary and their crew. This is a fucking punk-rock song yeah, so get your dancing shoes on. This song is called Punches." Pushing on into Do One the crowd was led into a "Fucking shithouse" quality chant with the band negging the crowd on being quieter than Coolum and Americans. "At the start of this we asked for you to bounce and some of you did bounce, and others of you did not. But I am going to ask one more time, because there is a bit near the end of this song that I think we should all jump and down together. Are you with
me (crowd cheers) Now here is the thing. I believe about two-thirds of you. Some of you are sceptics. Some people have good reason not to join in because you aren't able of comfortable jumping in public and those people are welcome here and at every show I fucking play. (crowd cheers) But there are other people out there who are not planning on jumping for other reasons. I am going to be generous and say it's because you're scared... I just want us to get into a safe space where people can feel safe to be themselves. So I want to see you all jumping. If you are one of those people who are standing there still, even after all of this staring me down thinking fuck this guy, I'm not going to jump up and down. I will cool. People around me will think I am cool and Jaret from Bowling For Soup will like me more. That's against the point. If you are watching me and Bowling For Soup play a show, the cool train left the station some time ago and you weren't fucking on it. Are you ready to
have some fun?" At this point the room mostly jumped, the floor and balcony areas moving as one to Polaroid Picture, a dance pit forming in the centre of the room, shifting one more into a light hearted circle pit, covering a third of the floor area. Get Better had concert goers speeding toward the end of the set, the energy picking up again as a frantic bounce pit took over, converting to a pirouetting punk crowd as the Frank Turner performance came to a close with Four Simple Words.
Last but not least, we are on to the final band of the evening, Bowling For Soup. Starting the show with a Bowling For Soup theme song, we were immediately met with the energy that was going to be their set. The crowd joined in a sing-a-long as BFS performed Almost. "What you are experiencing now, is the first song of the greatest fucking show you will see. (crowd cheers) Unless you go see Slipknot." "How you doing Brisbane? I love seeing all your smiling faces. Now I want to see all your arses shacking along with me. Are you ready?" High School Never Ends had the crowd screaming at the top of their lungs a jumping pit forming, the balconies swaying along to the music. Within the gaps away from the
microphone Jaret had walked around the stage to different points of the crowd and the look of surprise and happiness on his face while watching the crowd is something that will stick with me for a long time. It is easy to forget that the crowd is a novelty for the bands as much as the bands are for us, and as I watched him light up at the sight it was a vivid reminder of just how much weight we hold for these band members, who are just people like us who happen to play music. "I don't want to brag but we just played two songs in a row." "That's two more songs than you guys played tonight." "And I want to point out that that is probably the last time we will do that tonight." "Or Maybe in our career." "Who do you think we are, Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls? Because they can play three songs in a row without passing out. Give it up for Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls." Starting a crowd mimic which rapidly devolved had the crowd laughing as Jaret continued
"I see I fucked you on that. I was trying to keep it upbeat." "You guys would suck at that game Simon. You know the one where you press the button." Being treated to a metal scream the show continued with a sing-song introduction "Ladies and Gentlemen, we're Bowling For Soup. Yes we are. We are from the great State of Texas. Which is a lot like Australia. We're all very attractive. We're all very nice. We fucking love high prices in petrol. Hang on. Hang on. Stop for a second. Do y'all call it petrol or gas?" "PETROL." Kicking back in "We all have really expensive petrol. Ladies and Gentlemen I made this next song about the great State of Texas. It's called Ohio." Ruckus cheers and clapping took over the venue as the crowd jumped in. Cutting off the track half way through, "Wait, everyone put your hands up in the air like this. If the person next to you isn't doing it, it's because they hate puppies (Crowd laughs) and they aren't even a virgin." The crowd taking the lead swayed their hands, before following instructions to do spirit fingers, jazz hands, pretending to be on a roller coaster including accompanying Woo noises, inflatable man arms and waving to a random person they don't know. With the crowd laughing, BFS finished Ohio as if nothing had happened. Mexican food started a crowd debate confusing all
Americans in the building with GYG being screamed at the stage. The conversation devolved rapidly into a conversation that I will mostly spare you from, but the punch line came down to "Finishing in a jar of peanut butter" and "Any girls who just raised their hand at that. As long as you are over age, I would love to hear how that came about. I fucking believe you guys. This song is about my next girlfriend. I've been married three times since this." Emily saw bassist Rob running around the stage, slide from one side to the other and kicking amps before rushing back to the microphone. "We first came to Australia I believe in 2007, which means that some of you in the audience, weren't. Can you believe you bought your children to the show tonight. But then we came back for a festival then we didn't come to Australia for a really long time... It was always our intention to get back here. And then in recent years streaming started to happen and of course our number one country was the United States and number two has always been the United Kingdom and guess who recently became third?" (Crowd cheers) "That's right, the Republic of Congo." "No, it's Canada. And you guys are number four... I had that joke so set up guys and then Rob just came over and took a shit on me. I would
have him boo me but I don't like how that feels... Who has been listening to us for a long time? In 2009 we released an Album called 'Sorry For Farting' and we thought that Album was going to catapult us into the stratosphere. And we got dropped from our label (crowd laughs) It is chock full of good songs and one of them features my daughter at the end of it when she was very very young and she is not here to perform her part tonight, so without the very end of it this song is called I Don't Wish You Were Dead Anymore." The bouncy energy of the pit continued as the band moved into Punk Rock 101, adding the bonus of a push-pit, lyrical back and forth and 'Unique Bowling For Soup photo opportunity' into the mix. After a pause for some Quantas, Spirit Airlines and Jetstar bashing Punk Rock 101 came to it's end with "Give it up for us for playing that song." "And then for finishing that song. That was a bit of an added bonus for you guys for showing up. OH! Everyone, welcome to
the stage, my friend and your friend acoustic guitar Jaret." "Thank you everyone. Thank you Rob. It is wonderful to be here and playing the show. What a fun night we are having... The guys are kind enough to give me a minute or two each show to talk to you about mental health. And it just happens to the second day of Mental Health Awareness Month. I just want to say that I feel like every single one of you is very very important and you all matter. The reason why I am talking about this is because I have started experiencing Anxiety and Depression for the first time. And if it can get me, it can get literally anyone. I am the happiest person I have ever met and I wrote this song for you. If you have ever been in a room like this, acting like you are having the best time of your life but deep down you feel alone this song is for you, and I'm really fucking glad you are here tonight." Turbulence saw the interesting combination of torches being held up, a sing-a-long, waving hands and a row pit. While I did find the "Row" chant misplaced and distracting from the atmosphere Jaret was creating I do understand the community of the Row itself. "I love yelling at people and have them yell back at me. In High School it sucked, but this setting is WAY better. Fuck yeah!" "FUCK YEAH!" "Hey, look who's back. Electric guitar Jaret." "That
was my alter-ego." Lifting the atmosphere again the band charged through with the sway enducing Two-Seater. "That seemed good. That seemed like it went pretty well." "Wasn't that great?" "Sounded good to me. Let me ask you something. Wait, can you light up the crowd for me... Where is Austen. I want him to come up here. He is going to come out here in a bit. When you guys saw Ian come out before did you think it was me? Hey Ian, come out here for a sec." The crowd cheered as Ian took to the stage, looking a potential cousin to Jaret. He waved at the crowd before running back to the safety of back stage. "Just curious, how many of you have seen us before? Well that's not enough. Thank you for being here tonight. Give yourselves a round of applause. Give it up for Talk Heavy for playing first. Give it up for Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls for playing next. They made a joke you all would leave after their set , but they fucked off. Mother fuckers are at the hotel
sleeping soundly right now. We have an early arse flight. Probably have room service. How many of you are aware that for nine years we did the theme song to the best cartoon. (crowd cheers hysterically) You are correct. Also, how many of you are aware that said cartoon is back!" (Crowd cheers) "Well we're not going to play it. (crowd boos) Watch this. Oh wait, you're over there. Wait. Wait. I have to do it again. Act surprised. You want me to disappoint them." Rob grabbed at the top of his pants, Jaret rushing hurriedly to interrupt him. "No, no, there are children here." "OH right. Watch this." "We're not an emo band from the early 2000s. (crowd cringes) Too soon? Let's be real. There is no too soon at a Bowling For Soup concert." "On that note, here is a cartoon theme song." The energy in the room lifted once more a push pit forming as the crowd screamed as one to Today Is Going To Be A Great Day. "At our age, I wish all of our songs were that long. We would get so much more beer. So many more breaks. You guys would be like 'We are only jumping for thirty-five seconds'." "At our age we will take all the length we can get." Speed running the Good Things Korn and Marijuana debacle and the corn poo commentary we now land at the point of Austen becoming necessary to the conversation.
"So during Good Things Festival we had a guy in the audience that really wanted to come up and play a song and he is making a second appearance tonight." "Spoiler. It's the same guy that we bought up before. Go shred! Nevermind, let's just play the song." "Hey Austen, are you sure you know this song?" "Not at all." "Sound promising." "I think it's going to be fine. Give it up for Austen. This song is called 1985." At this point the crowd sang so loud I could hardly hear Jaret, who moved over to Austen to sing in random, the trio working the stage and crowd as they bounced and cheered. "Instagram DM's are a mother fucker. We just planned that an hour ago. Man, I have to be honest. This is the best night ever. Thank you so much for being here... You know, I hate goodbyes." "So see ya later." "But that was the end of our show." "So we are going to do stand-up for the next thirty-seven minutes." "Here's my first joke. Ready. I stopped clearing my browser history because I want my wife to know what I want her to dress up as. (Crowd laughs) That's a good joke you fuckers." "He was watching a video where Johnny Knoxville dresses up as the Grandpa." "Do you have
a joke?" "No... Maybe tomorrow." "Do you guys want Rob to tell a joke or no?" "YES!" "See. Give the people what they want." "Ok. So my buddy, he is a giraffe by the way... we got a bar and he is drinking a bunch, and so am I. He the giraffe falls off his seat, because he is so drunk he falls on the ground. So I'm like fuck this I'm out of here and I go to leave and the bar tender is like, Hey are you going to leave him lying there? And I'm like Hey! That's not a Lion, that's a Giraffe." Crowd laughs. "Alright. Do you want to hear Gary tell a joke before we end the night? (Crowd cheers) Gary. What're you got buddy?" "So I don't clear my browser history (crowd erupts in laughter) because I want Jaret's wife to know." I will spare you the five minute back and forth that took place here, but generally what you need to know is that Gary is the handsome one of the band and Jaret's wife agrees. "This is my favourite ending to a show every. Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for paying attention to us. We will be back very very soon, and we would love it if you came to watch us again. In all seriousness, we appreciate this more than you will ever know. Thank you very much Brisbane. Thank you Talk Heavy. Thank you Frank Turner and his now Sleeping Souls. We leave you tonight with the best song ever." Girl All The Good Guys Want had the
pit already opened clearing half of the floor before the first note. Watching the dancers in the pit and fans screaming the lyrics at the top of their lungs to the band had the atmosphere through the roof. "Alright we are going to try something. We are going to get that circle pit back. What I want you to do now guys and girls is make that a square. We tried this in the U.K a few times and they couldn't fucking do it. But I think you guys can do it. We are going to do Australia's first SQUARE PIT. When you get to the guy in the blue shirt you are going to pivot. When you get to that guy in that jersey, you're going to pivot. When you get to the guy with the beard. Pivot! And then we will have done Australia's first square pit. AH-WA-AH-AH-AH. That's a bit from earlier that the other band did. Sorry. Ready." The square pit kicked in with the music making the band laugh while they were trying to sing. "Thank you very much. We are Bowling For Soup. We will see you soon."
Talk Heavy photos by a_w.johnstone
Frank Turner and Bowling For Soup photos by SamHerbertMedia
You can read our review of Able Machine and Bowling For Soup's Connections cover here.
If you or someone you know needs help or someone to talk to, Lifeline is available 24 hours either to call on 13 11 14 or via text on 0477 13 11 14.
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