Bowling for Soup / Suburban Legends / Orange – O2 ABC, Glasgow

Suburban Legends
Image by Iain Purdie via Flickr

[more photos of the gig in this Flickr collection, and this one]

Bowling For Soup are always bound to guarantee a giggle and also to bring good support with them. This year we got Orange (who we missed, sorry) and Suburban Legends who were incredibly good fun. As well as having nice bouncy songs, they were well-choreographed and acted like a headlining act for their short tenure on the stage. Definitely a band to keep your eye out for if they tour sometime.

BFS themselves strolled on stage around 15 minutes after SL finished – a quick set change by anyone’s standards. Sadly, three of the band are recovering from ‘flu which did seem to affect their performance. Don’t get me wrong. They were great fun, but you could just tell it was a harder slog than normal. Credit to them for fighting through the snot and headaches to put on a performance.

Many of the classics were blasted out at rapid speed as well as a decent selection from the current Fishing For Woos. As a bonus, we also got “Stacy’s Mom” which the band recently released as a B-side because people keep thinking they did the original. The between-song banter was as good as ever, though perhaps not as prevalent as last year due to the headaches being suffered by the band. Man flu is a killer.

Bowling For Soup - Glasgow ABC
Image by Iain Purdie via Flickr

Despite this, they did pretty damn well though the stage set itself wasn’t as good as the one at the Academy in 2010 where we had nice big video screens. There was an inflatable pig, though. Admittedly it was about 12″ long and thrown up from the crowd, but hey. Beggars can’t be choosers. You’re not going to get a 25′ inflatable sheep into the ABC without crushing half the crowd.

Overall, an enjoyable show but not the best I’ve seen from them. I put this entirely down to evil viruses and not the band. Other acts would have considered cancelling, so full credit to Jared and the guys for going ahead with the show. It was worth the effort!

Also, please excuse the short post. I’m knackered after virtually no sleep from last night after the Volbeat gig

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GWAR / Clutch – O2 ABC, Glasgow

GWAR
Image by Iain Purdie via Flickr

[More pictures and some videos in my GWAR Flickr set]

I was rather pleased to be able to see the infrequently-touring GWAR, especially as I couldn’t make it to this year’s Download where they were also playing. The last time I saw them was in Manchester around 2003 (at a guess) and before that must have been the early 90’s at the laughingly-monikered “Middlesbrough Arena” (I’ve lived in houses with bigger bedrooms than that place). I gather it’s been 17 years since they played in Scotland at all, and the crowd were baying for blood.

Picked the right band, then.

However, before them was a half-decent set by Clutch that I’m still not sure if I liked or not. I gather they’ve got a bit of a hardcore following, but I don’t think I’ll ever get into them. Their first couple of songs were rather slow and dull until the singer strapped on a guitar and the tempo seemed to increase. Much better.

Thing is, they then finished with some rather experimental, weird-sounding guff somewhat reminiscent of David Bowie during the “I’m on ****-tons of drugs” phase. credit to them for having so much variety, but… no, not for me.

GWAR finally took the stage at 10pm and started their set by ripping Her Majesty The Queen‘s boobs off. It went downhill from there. In a good way.

I don’t know a single damn song by GWAR, but I wasn’t there for the music. I think I tried to listen to an album once, back before I saw them the first time, and I wasn’t too impressed. However, their stage show is worth the entry fee.

Gillian cowered at the back near the bar while I got covered head to toe in stage blood, squirted out of various ripped and torn carcasses. And an alien penis.

As you do.

It really is completely silly, but that’s the point. Loud music, ridiculous costumes, extreme violence and Lady Gaga being beaten to death with a giant sink plunger. I’m sure she’d approve.

Fortunately, curfew wasn’t at 11pm, so we did get an encore and the curtain dropped around 11:15. I don’t envy the cleaning crew their job, but have to thank the guys working the barrier who did a sterling piece of work in their soon-discarded plastic macs.

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