Jaret Reddick + The Lounge Kittens @ Rescue Rooms 17th September, 2017

Jaret Reddick is best known as the front-man of pop punk band Bowling For Soup but his tour ‘Heartache and Hilarity’ sees him going it alone with only an acoustic guitar. During the tour Jaret will reveal where the inspiration came from behind some of our favourite Bowling For Soup songs.

Before Jaret graced us with his presence we were greeted by The Lounge Kittens who instantly brightened the stage with their vibrant hair colours and matching, and somewhat revealing shiny outfits. The trio with their unique set of cover songs performed in the style of lounge music suitably warmed up the crowd particularly since they opened the night with their pop punk medley which featured songs from bands such as Blink 182, The Offspring, Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco and many more; no doubt this was the ideal opener for a room of Bowling For Soup Fans.

 

Continuing to please the fans the ladies also played a medley of 80’s and 90’s kids TV theme tunes, for a majority of people in the room the songs will have been from their era so again was an ideal medley to throw into their set to get people warmed up. They also treated the crowd to their Download Festival 2017 set and a Rock medley. Overall The Lounge Kittens provided laughs with their on stage banter and entertained the fans with their music; the perfect act to open for Jaret.

Looking around at the crowd I was amazed to see what a diverse group of people had appeared to watch one man on his own do his thing. There were people of all ages there, even people well into their 70’s. It proved that Jaret was appealing to everyone and we were hopefully in for a good night.

It was 15 years ago when I first saw Jaret, which some would say was a lifetime ago but having only ever seen Jaret fronting Bowling for Soup I was eager to see how he would come across on stage alone; we know there are a lot of laughs when he has his band mates to bounce off but tonight it was all on him.

Coming on stage he immediately took his seat, (where he would stay for the remainder of the evening) which set the mood and the atmosphere for the evening, one of a casual, chilled and relaxed tempo. He went straight into his first song ‘If You Come Back To Me’, it was all very serious until he started to sing the lyrics to ‘Me With No You’! As his mistake dawned on him he started to laugh turning his error into comedy and this was just the first of many laughs through the night. ‘I thought this sounded out of tune!’

The evening was filled with funny anecdotes mainly about past relationships which had inspired various songs Jaret had written but it wasn’t until he came to play ‘When We Die’ that the heartache truly came to show. He first started to talk about his battle with depression and whether the band should continue and Jaret was visibly fighting back the tears as he told us about one of his dearest friends, the ups and downs they experienced during their friendship and finally about his friend’s untimely death just two weeks after they got back in touch after a fall out. We aren’t used to seeing Jaret’s serious side but in this moment his emotions were raw, you could feel his pain as he performed and I’m pretty certain I was not the only one with a lump in my throat. He then went into the song he wrote and dedicated to his friend ‘Goodbye Friend.’

The mood was quickly lifted again as we moved onto more background stories which often saw Jaret go off on a tangent of amusing tales about his past as he reminisced. One of the funniest stories was the details behind their original, very religious drummer and ‘The Bitch Song’ and how because of their drummer, the first few albums had very little swearing as he didn’t like swearing…oh how that had all changed once Gary joined the band! A similar story emerged for the reason behind ‘A friendly Goodbye’, a swearing without swearing song all about a religious ex. Brilliant.

All of the songs Jaret performs on the ‘Heartache and Hilarity’ tour were written by him but when a heckler called out for him to play ‘Belgium’ he agreed to do it despite it being written by his Bowling For Soup band mate Eric Chandler; he made sure he gave Eric credit for the song and even plugged Eric’s solo career whilst he was at it and keeping with the idea of the tour he told us what had influenced his friend to write the song. He also went into the backstory of two of the children’s theme tunes that he wrote, ‘Phineas and Ferb’ and ‘Jimmy Neutron’ which was very interesting.

Having been listening to and following Bowling For Soup for over 15 years this show really made me see Jaret and his songs in a different light; hearing the reason for a song makes you truly listen to it properly. The lyrics take on a different meaning and definitely gives you a deeper connection. It also reminds you just how lovely a guy Jaret is and having recently promoted mental health awareness after his own battles you can tell he really does care about things and wants a better happier place for everyone. He explains that he is in a much better place now mentally, losing weight and enjoying life. Good for him.

The Heartache and Hilarity tour is what it says on the tin and in my opinion, was a really good experience and if you can catch him on any of his remaining tour dates I definitely would.

Setlist

If You Come Back to Me

The Bitch Song

Jimmy Neutron

Val Kilmer

When We Die

A Friendly Goodbye

Ohio (Come Back To Texas)

Surf Colorado

Me With No You

Goodbye Friend

Phineas and Ferb

Belgium

Graduation Trip

Smoothie King

Turbulence

1985

Encore:

Friends of Mine

Photos and Review: Shaz Rafferty and Gemma Bywater

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