Live Review: Bouncing Souls / Potato Pirates / Cheap Perfume – New Year’s Eve Live in Denver

Summit Music Hall – 31 Dec 2022

The Bouncing Souls put on a great New Years show that was only marred by the negative energy in the crowd.

I’ve admittedly never been a huge The Bouncing Souls fan. They certainly have a handful of real bangers in their catalogue. I made a music video in high school to “True Believers” so I have a relationship with that song. There’s nothing wrong with them as a band, it’s just that they don’t really have anything to make them stand apart from the masses of other punk bands. But it was a New Years Eve show and you don’t need to be the cleverest or most original band to put on a New Year’s Eve party. You just need to be a fun party band. A few years before at the same venue Against Me! played New Year’s Eve, but that works because, as much as Against Me! are an art-punk band, they’re also musically a lot of fun. So I was happy to check out The Bouncing Souls for the holiday.

One thing I loved about this show was that, while other bands fresh out of COVID are putting together national tours with 4-6 bands on the tour, the Bouncing Souls had two local bands open for them: Cheap Perfume and Potato Pirates. Cheap Perfume is a badass riot grrl band who I’ve seen about four times now, most recently in November at a small show at a bookstore. At first, there wasn’t much difference between their small bookstore show and opening for a huge band on NYE. Lead singer Stephanie Byrne still performed without pants on like they always do, they still interacted with audience members on the song “Dogs Against Dog Hollerin,” and they still did their cover of Le Tigre’s “TKO.” But the big difference between the sets was that the crowd at this show got really nasty towards the band because of their feminist lyrics. The band was obviously getting nervous, and you could see them signaling to each other to cut songs because the crowd was getting hostile. Byrne even mentioned from the stage that they were seeing a lot of middle fingers in the crowd and made a comment about it being great to have feedback in either direction. The fact that Byrne continued on with the show with the same confidence they always perform with was the single most punk rock thing I had ever seen on a stage.

( Quick aside- I’d just like to state something for the record: if you have a problem with feminism at a punk show, you don’t belong at a punk show. If you don’t believe in equality for all people, you’re not punk. Yes, they had some inflammatory songs, most particularly “No Men,” but it’s a feminist punk band so I didn’t exactly expect them to get up there and read a politely-worded letter to the patriarchy. It should be pretty obvious that the band doesn’t actually hate men by the simple fact that there are men in the band! I’m pretty sure that The Bouncing Souls weren’t aware of the fact that their fans were being so hostile to the opening band, as I would have expected them to address the situation. But, as much as the bro-punks in the crowd got butthurt by the mean feminists, everywhere in the crowd where you saw women they were obviously enjoying the band.)

Then came the Potato Pirates, who I would probably say are the most popular local punk band in Denver. You can’t go to a punk show in all of Denver without seeing a punk with a Potato Pirates patch on their back. I had actually never heard them before, even after being surrounded by fans of theirs for years. After everything that had just happened with Cheap Perfume, I wasn’t really thrilled about the idea of a band with a lot of masculine energy taking the stage, which is admittedly no fault of the band. The crowd seemed to be far more receptive to this band than the previous one, and I just didn’t see it. They’re certainly a good band, I just didn’t see what made them so much more popular than other incredible local bands I’ve seen over the years like Truckasaurus and Wiredogs, both of which are now defunct but never enjoyed the popularity of Potato Pirates.

Finally came The Bouncing Souls, who put on about the show I expected. It was certainly a lot of fun, but I just wasn’t loving the energy from the crowd. It’s not the band’s fault, but I didn’t completely feel comfortable or safe in the crowd. There was a bit of violence that didn’t feel much like the controlled, friendly chaos of a mosh pit. The band had to rely on the crowd to tell them when it was getting close to midnight, which disrupted the flow of the show. But once midnight hit, they dropped balloons on the crowd and launched into another song and the show went smoothly from there. So, all in all, it was a fun show and a worthwhile way to spend New Year’s, but the energy from the crowd was really negative, aggressive, and brimming with toxic masculinity.