Live Review: Back For The Attack Tour: Less Than Jake, Bowling For Soup, The Aquabats

Starland Ballroom, Sayreville, NJ – 25 Jun 2022

Party like its 1999

In mentioning my plans for the weekend including seeing Less Than Jake, Bowling For Soup and The Aquabats and how jealous 20-year-old me would be, a much more intelligent buddy said something that resonated strongly.  “Time travel is a thing, man.  The mistake is that we think we transport our bodies through time, when our spirits can travel whenever we’re reminded of a time that we loved,” Randy waxed poetically, and he nailed it.

Everything about this statement rang true leading up to and throughout the show.  This collection of artists transported me to different moments in time and let me relive some of my best, and admittedly worst moments.  There was not a single set that didn’t remind me of my ‘98-99 senior year.

The most surprising return came before I was even in the doors to Starland Ballroom.  Walking up through the crowd, I saw green hair and a white shirt entering one of the buses with a pack of Miller Lite.  From the 30 yard distance, there was no reason beyond kismet that I should’ve looked at that hair, build and silhouetted face and thought “hey, that looks like Matt.”

Matt Gray, the former drummer for Bigwig during the Stay Asleep and Invitation to Tragedy sessions and touring cycles, was drumming for openers Don’t Panic for this leg of the tour.  It’s been 20 years since I last saw him, but he is still one of the most insane drummers to watch.  Nobody has more fun behind the kit.  It was an immediate transport back to the days when a bunch of us goofy high school punk fans would surround him at merch tables and hang on his every tale of merry-making while on tour, and I once again felt myself in a world I’d long since left, living vicariously as Matt pounded and pummeled the set.  

Beyond the experience of man-crushing the incomparable Gray, Don’t Panic was a surprise and a delight.  The PA four-piece put on an outstanding pop punk throwback set.  Like, pop-punk that reminded me of high school, pop-punk that reminded me of why I fell in love with the scene, pop-punk that fills a room with chord progressions and grins. 

I’m not calling them generic, because they were wonderful, but every song performed easily could’ve appeared on a Drive Thru Records compilation. Hell, “Fall of ’99” even referenced the label (without the grossness of the Reines siblings). The band spent its entire set filling the room with “whoa-oas” and 3 chords of nostalgia.  

The only downside to the Don’t Panic set… too flippin’ short.  The crux of an opening act, I suppose, but I could’ve watched this quartet for hours.  While this was my first time experiencing the Don’t Panic sound, they brought me right back to that era of music when Fenix TX & New Found Glory were constantly .  This wasn’t a young band getting their sea legs, Don’t Panic knew exactly how to handle the crowd and build the energy.

Speaking of energy, the room was overflowing with it during The Aquabats set. The ska-punk mightiest heroes are always amazing performances. More importantly, the crowd was full of the electricity inherent of a young fan’s first show. 

Thanks to the band’s involvement in Yo! Gabba Gabba and The Aquabats Super Show TV programs, the fanbase for The Aquabats is significantly lower than the normal Starland attendees. This could be a normal occurrence I didn’t know about since I last saw them (1999) with Catch 22 & The Hippos at the Wayne Firehouse, but it led to a swelling in my heart to watch the Lil’ Bats enjoy the show with their parents. It was also a stark reminder that our 13 year old who use to love watching the Super Show and reminding us often that there’s no pineapples in Detroit is now too cool, too grown and too independent to be bothered… but at least it reminded me that there was a time when she wanted to watch ska-punk superheroes fight sharks and save the world with me.

One extremely important note regarding the children in the audience is how amazing the security staff was. The Starland security team has been the gold standard for years, but I gained a huge new level of respect watching the 2 men, usually known for separating altercations and slinging full grown crowd surfers. These men never lost track of any of the children in the crowd, calling them to the front and providing them a safe space on the other side of the rail with water and an unobstructed view. They went out of their way helping them find parents that had become separated and generally showing a higher level of compassion than would normally be seen from such a stoic pairing. As the night went on and more guards took a post in the area, there was never a doubt that every child in the venue would be safe, attended to and helped by the men in orange. It was something really special to see.

For a long time, The Aquabats have been considered one of the best live acts thanks to their insane stage show, inflatables and crowd involvement, and this time they certainly did not disappoint. Charging through classics like “Fashion Zombies!,” “Cat with 2 Heads!” and “Pizza Day!” before a special treat for the Jersey crowd with a cover of “Hybrid Moments” from The Misfits and a few bars of Bon Jovi‘s “Living on a Prayer.”  The set closed out with the fantastic “Super Rad!” and the perfect-for-the-first-weekend-of-Summer banger, “Pool Party!” complete with ‘Bat emblazoned beach balls being batted around in the crowd.

After the kid-friendly party known as The Aquabats was a similar but very different experience, Bowling For Soup.  When the band came out to play crowd favorite “High School Never Ends,” it was hard not to recall my high school self, until dad-mode kicked in and I got frustrated with the blow job and jerk off jokes being told in a room with such a high number of youngsters.  And then I got pissed at myself for being so old as to even notice, let alone get bent out of shape over it.  What the hell happened to me, and why is Bowling for Soup forcing me to reconcile my sophomoric sense of humor with my conscience?  

The band didn’t go overboard with new material. The setlist I happened to sneak a peek at only included two tracks from Pop Drunk Snot Bread, “I Wanna Be Brad Pitt, and “Bowling For Soup Pee Break,” the latter of which I do not recall actually being played. BFS did, however, keep the between-song banter consistent and fun.  The band did make a point to get through all their staples, including “Theme Song For Phineas and Ferb,” “Punk Rock 101,” “1985”, before closing down their set with “Girl All the Bad Guys Want.”

Less Than Jake then took the stage to close out the night and help bridge the gap back to the future.  LTJ have done the near impossible, being a ska band with a tenure, and performances like this guarantee the Floridians will never be without growth in the audience.  As soon as the first chord of set opener “Automatic” kicked in, the pit was filled in like a wholesale club’s can of sardines.  With nary a movement possible, the crowd had no choice but to join in the fun.  And join it they did. 

I felt the crowd energy feed into my own and reignite the fire that used to burn, bringing me back to ‘99.  The thing that has always made Less Than Jake so impressive in my eyes was the way they can own a crowd, but tonight I realized the audience is not in the subservient role I previously thought, they are in a partnership with each person in the pit and the show is greater than the sum of its own parts.  

The floor of the venue shakes as the rhythmic feet pound along, everyone in swirling round, arm in arm, laughing into the thick air as fingers go flying along with the lyrics.  This sense of community is such a welcome and missing element in 2022 and a true joy to be included in.  In theory, nothing sounds worse to me than a stranger putting their arm around my neck and shouting into my face but in practice, there is nothing better than being grabbed by a brother you haven’t met to shout positive affirmations at each.  Affirmations like “I swear it’s the last time, and I swear it’s my last try.”

The band ran the gamut of their discography, including the standards; “Johnny Quest Thinks We’re Sellouts,” “The Science of Selling Yourself Short,” “Dopeman” and “The Ghosts of Me And You.”  Each song was better than the last, and bookended by the fantastic conversationalists on stage.  When the band’s encore of “My Very Own Flag” and “All My Best Friends Are Metalheads,” kicked off the crowd was covered in sweat, smiles, new friends and nostalgia.  The show was proof that not only could LTJ curate a set from all over their voluminous discography and put together a transformative show, teleporting each member of the crowd to various personal triumphs and tragedies over their lives. 

And really, isn’t that the point of music for all of us, the ability to attach itself to a memory and return our soul to that moment for decades to come?