I'd seen Bowling For Soup only 6 months ago in this very building. Granted in the main room and was a full band but still. I didn't know what to expect from 'An Acoustic Night With Jaret and Erik' but i looked forward to it very very much.
The support was in the form of a guy called Bob Schneider. A solo acoustic artist with the same satire comedic lyrics of BFS. Very enjoyable and a fantastic warm up for the headliners if I'm honest. Well picked and well played. Already this felt like more of a comedy show than a gig.
BFS came onto stage to rapturous applause. This is BFS stripped down to just the vocalist and the bass player, but both playing acoustic guitars. It was an intimate setting, a couple of chairs, some table lamps and a lectern holding the BFS Songbook. The gig to be talked about properly has to be divided into 2 parts. The comedy/banter side and the music.
Firstly the banter. From Monty Python impressions to stories (mostly made up for comedy effect) about shagging each others dogs and mums Jaret and Erik are naturally funny.
Music wise, hearing the BFS back catalogue unplugged in this way gave it a different dimension. You really appreciate how good these two are at vocals & harmonies and what cracking songs they write, (although we later discovered that Erik is a songwriter and Jaret is a song maker-upper). They took requests from the audience (although ignored the frequent calls for Emily - which I imagine is a bitch to play on an acoustic guitar), played songs from years ago through to the brilliant latest album ("Sorry for Partyin'") and, after discovering that Two-Seater had the same chord progression as a recently revived Journey song, they played a blinding version of Don't Stop Believing. Outdoing Glee by a country mile. The song that really had the crowd singing along was obviously 'Girl All The Bad Guys Want' most likely because its the song that every single person knew even if they got dragged along to the gig by their partner, kids or mate. 2 and a half hours they played.... 2 and a half god damn hours. I'm not complaining as it was a fantastic show but i use 'God Damn' in its shocked form. They literally played a bit of everything. From songs that Erik had wrote and sang for a previous band to the Phineas and Ferb theme tune famously by them.
Just a cracking, intimate night filled with sing alongs and laughs. I'd advise any BFS fan to see them in this way.
Peace
x
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