Devil's Gate Music
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Kelly is simply delightful. Full of LA spirit, she flirts and jokes with the audience and thrashes the heck out of her bass, whilst Luis Cabezas fills the sound out on guitar, backs up the vocals, and gently mocks her. Highlights of their set were easily “Brand New Key”, especially Kelly’s giggly announcement that the song wasn’t really about roller skates at all, “Jackie Chan”, “City Of Angels” and “Because I’m Awesome”. They used the acoustic format incredibly well. Despite both being seated, they played with energy and vigour, but used the intimacy of the venue to get to know the crowd. Their music has that ‘top down driving in the sunshine’ feel, and I found myself wishing for an Indian Summer to make the most of my new playlist! As there is little on stage to move off at the end of each set it isn’t long before Jaret Reddick takes the stage to a stool, a table with a bottle of liquor and a music stand. Firstly, my Jaret has grown! I was genuinely quite shocked at how big he has become as he settled himself with acoustic guitar on his lap. He addresses it himself with a shirt stating “I hate running”, and makes reference to his weight gain several times during the set. Therein lies the point of the tour. This isn’t a rock star posing on stage. It is someone who has written more than their fair share of great songs talking about the life behind their creation and performance. He is a wonderful and natural raconteur. He is candid and open and several times makes himself laugh at what comes out of his mouth as much of the two hours on stage is unscripted. We get the songs, but delivered in a way that often makes you hear them as if for the first time, the lyrics taking on new meaning when you understand what influenced them. “Almost” has the crowd providing the guitar parts, which was fun, and again, exactly how an acoustic show can create energy. “Life After Lisa” was introduced with the story of how it was written, and “Catalyst” sounds totally different played this way. It’s the tales and insights that make the set special though. We get the “frog joke” which Reddick tells and makes himself laugh at, then states that it’s empowering to the women in the audience as nobody can tell them what to do. We get a hilarious story about Kelly and the seat in the ladies toilet (she appears in the crowd with it later!). We get a birthday cake for Luis Dollyrot with all the cast from the evening on stage. Then we get the really candid insights: A story about how his father turned out to not be his biological parent. Something he knew because “nobody in my family had nostrils like mine”, and how he found a whole new family, led to “Girl All The Bad Guys Want”, a story about how it was his grandfather, who told him to follow his dreams and make music his life followed by “Drinkin’ Beer On A Sunday”. Most of the set is high spirits and amusing, but the most powerful element of the set is when he turns his reflections towards mental health. Describing it as an epidemic in this profession, he talks about how, when he announced that Bowling For Soup were playing their last tour, he meant it. His mental state meant that he never wanted to play again. He talks about how close he came to ending things and the help he received kept him here. There is utter silence in the crowd followed by a genuine and tearful ovation. The song that followed, “Turbulence”, had me in pieces, and I was far from the only one. Looking around as hairy arsed rockers found they had something in their eye and refused to look at their friends who felt exactly the same way, and couples found they needed to put their arms around each other. Two hours absolutely flew by, and I could have listened to hours more. Jaret is back with the band for some Christmas shows. Bigger, but hopefully happier and enjoying life rather than suffering it. Review and Pics Rob Wilkins [gallery type='flickr' user_id='132278830@N06' view='photosets' photoset_id='72157695794961060' media='photos' columns='3' tag_mode='any' sort='date-posted-desc' per_page='26' layout='square' caption='title' thumb_size='s' main_size='z' ]]]>
