Live Review: The Bouncing Souls and guests at the Fillmore Underground

Charlotte, NC – 09 December 2023

Jam packed four band folk, ska, punk show.

This tour was originally billed with Anti-Flag as the main opening act before their break-up. 7 Seconds was booked replace them on most of the east coast leg of the tour but a few of the members got Covid and what was to be a one stop only deal at Charlotte for The Pietasters turned into a few stops. This didn’t change anything for us as we were going to the Charlotte show, having seen 7 Seconds a few times before and having never seen The Pietasters, I was excited about the line up. In addition to The Bouncing Souls and the Pietasters was Catbite (the only reason my 8-year daughter was there), and Blind Adam and the Federal League.

Now opinions may differ, but three opening bands can be a bit much for some. I was not very familiar with Blind Adam and the Federal League and with three other bands to come, it made it a little hard to get too excited for them. They had a little bit of a folk punk sound with sing-a-long choruses and some of the already filled in pit area was singing along. Adam did have some good banter with the crowd and it turns out, he is indeed legally blind. The band sounded tight and if I wasn’t saving my excitement for three other bands, I may have been into them more.

Up next was the main attraction for my daughter, Catbite. We had already seen them earlier this year (see our video interview, which opens in a new window) and had an idea what to expect, and they did not disappoint. We were positioned in front of Tim and Kenny and they are like the Energizer bunny on turbo. They never stop jumping around. The entire band brings so much energy and fun and the crowd responded. They mixed up the set list from earlier this year adding in a No Doubt cover “Sunday Morning” and not playing their fantastic cover of Neon Trees “Everybody Talks” to my daughter’s only disappointment of their set. As usually the band members take turns hanging out at the merch table and talking to the fans after their set.

Renowned east coast ska band The Pietasters hit the stage next. Now I thought this may be an odd fit between Catbite and The Bouncing Souls but it actually worked out well. After the intensity of Catbite and the anticipation for the Souls it was nice to have some mellower songs to catch your breath and power up your energy reserve. By no means was every song was mellow, The Pietasters have some mosh pit crowd surfing skanking in your face jams and that is exactly what the crowd did. It’s been a minute since I had seen a full horn section ska band live and the smaller stage was at full capacity. As any third wave ska fan knows The Pietasters have been playing shows since the early ‘90’s and they’re still bringing their fans what they want.

Finally, we came to the Bouncing Souls. I had first come to find interest in them after playing the PlayStation snowboarding game X-Games Pro Boarder around 1998 and hearing the song “Kate Is Great”. Since then, I have been a casual fan with their self-titled 1997 release becoming part of my regular CD rotation in the late 1990’s. I think I may have caught them at a Warped Tour back in the day but this would be my first time seeing them headlining a show. I was pretty happy they played plenty of older tunes that I knew most of the words to mixed in with a few newer ones that I was less familiar with. They played all the hits like “Ole”, “Kids and Heros”, “Say Anything”, “Fight to Live”, “East Coast Fuck You”, and my old favorite “Kate Is Great”. At one point they were joined on stage by The Pietasters trumpet player to add some horns to “The Pizza Song” and later Brittany from Catbite joined them to help sing “Lean on Sheena” for a truly live music experience. Yes, a few songs like “These Are The Quotes From Our Favorite 80’s Movies” or “The Toilet Song” would have been cool to hear live but the set ran through a decent gamut of their collection and went for a good length. Towards the end of the set everyone left the stage and Greg Attonito picked up an acoustic guitar for one song before the rest of the band re-joined the stage for the final songs, which was a refreshing way around your typical encore routine.

Before I sign off on this review, I wanted to give special props to the guitar player Pete Steinkopf for handing out water bottles and picks to the youngsters up front.