Tonight I headed down to the Fleece in
Bristol a small independent venue which was saved
from corporate ownership back in May 2010 when
members of a local band helped save the venue
and make it what it is today, since the Fleece
first opened many years ago the venue has hosted
gigs from a diverse set of bands with their walls
plastered with posters of classic well established
bands that have played there over the years such
as Oasis, Amy Winehouse, Blur, Radiohead and many
others and tonight The Bouncing Souls were set
to bring their headline show to Bristol.
The Bouncing Souls were amongst one of the first
bands I saw live way back in December 2000 when
they supported Green Day on their massive arena
tour which stopped off in Nottingham and what
I remember from that show is standing right near
the front of the venue waiting for the Bouncing
Souls to start and within seconds mayhem exploded
with the mosh pit turning brutal with big biker
guys throwing as many punk fans in the air as
possible as the Bouncing Souls knocked out classic
punk anthems like “oi oi oi” and “Here
We Go”.
So a good 13 years on I am back ready to see
the Bouncing Souls again, as soon as I walk into
the venue the first thing I notice is that it
is packed to the rafters, now I have been to the
Fleece many times for gigs but have never known
the venue to be this busy before, so I find myself
a good spot in the venue and moments later The
Bouncing Souls take to the stage.
The Bouncing Souls opened with ‘Hopeless
Romantic’ and within seconds the venue is
buzzing with the crowd moving along in an energetic
way whilst singing-a-long, the likes of ‘Private
Radio’, ‘No Comply’, ‘
Lifetime’ and ‘Kid’ are played
early on in the set and the energy from both the
band and the crowd is fantastic throughout with
the venue turning into a sauna do to the heat
from the energetic crowd in tonight.
As the set progresses the crowd gets a bit more
daring with people storming the stage and stage
diving with one cheeky fan even planting a big
kiss on Greg Attonito’s cheek before diving
back into the crowd, Greg Attonito dealt with
this extremely well and acted like nothing had
happened and carried on laying down his well loved
unique sounding vocals.
Throughout the 1 hour and 10 minute set The Bouncing
Souls have they manage to fit in a wide range
of music from old classic songs to songs running
right up until their latest album ‘Comet’
and in between this they also mange to fit a couple
of cover songs in and not once does the excitement
from the crowd fade away as they lap up every
minute of the show.
The set comes to a close with a double whammy
of great songs with ‘True Believers’
and ‘Here We Go’ and at this point
the crowd start to storm the stage again in heavier
numbers as a select few brave fans choose to get
closer to their hero’s, bust a few moves
on stage before re-launching themselves back into
the crowd, as the show comes to an end hundreds
of punk fans descend on to the dark cold streets
of Bristol with a smile on their face whilst I
walk away as impressed as I was all those 13 years
ago.
The Bouncing Souls 4/5
Review By Trigger
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