LIVE FROM THE PIT: Less Than Jake, The Bouncing Souls, The Aquabats! and Bar Stool Preachers
- Julia Brunton
- Mar 18
- 6 min read
The Winter Circus’ debut in the UK was an energetic ska party driven by the 90s ska-punk royalty LESS THAN JAKE. From start to finish, every band was full of energy and love of performance; by the end of the evening the packed O2 Academy was primed for the weekend as they filed out into the crisp Leeds air.
The BAR STOOL PREACHERS set a perfect tone for the evening as they opened the festivities, delivering their 90s punk with peps in their step. After set openers Choose my Friends and Trickledown, frontman Tom McFaull let the Academy know the sixome’s ethos: community, equality, and family. He took the time to praise Yorkshire’s community spirit and reminded Leeds to never look down on anyone unless they were picking them up. This sentiment set a warm tone for the rest of their eight-track set, filled in the middle with a cover of COCK SPARRER’s Suicide Girls, followed by the first single from their next album Pick a Side - an anti genocide, pro-Palestine anthem with the money raised being donated to those suffering in the Gaza strip.
As their set rounded out McFaull’s large stage presence could not be ignored: saying the crowd sounded over fourty when the loud cheer came, playfully telling the crowd to shut up as they ‘woah’ out of time during Flatlined, or beginning each band’s fixation with starting the “Yorkshire” chant, that is a staple at any Leeds show, with a beaming smile. McFaull himself could not stop dancing as he shimmied his way around the stage, boogieing equally with the rest of the band and the O2 Academy, with the guitar players dancing among themselves when he was doing the latter.
Their closer, the self-titled Bar Stool Preacher, had McFaull making sure the crowd’s knees were up for the final two step for their set, but not before plugging the one off Huddersfield show they were performing with follow up act THE AQUABATS! the Sunday afterwards. All in all THE BAR STOOL PREACHERS were the perfect opener for The Winter Circus: full of energy and a strong ethos that cultivated a warm environment for the evening.
After twenty minutes, the tape rolled for California natives THE AQUABATS!, whose set was no less than a sensory assault in the best way possible. A high concept, racing tempo ska punk band, they ran onto stage in their blue and black supersuits as the countdown started for their ten-track performance. The opener was The Shark Fighter!, a bloopy anthem describing their escapades against the fish as a smash cut of 70-90s tv show and movie clips, mixed with clips from their TV show ran at full speed behind, while large inflatable sharks were launched into the crowd. The follow up Cat With Two Heads! came with instructions on the screen behind: shout, as if it could have been heard over the top of the blaring horns and power chords.
The stage show itself was a chaotic cabaret featuring battles with zombies and an appearance of the mythical yeti. The sharks also were not the only inflatables that hit the crowd throughout their set: massive pizzas were floating atop standing during Pizza Day! — someone made a good attempt at crowdsurfing on one of them, and the classic beach balls during the set closer Pool Party!. Like these set pieces, the tracks themselves are fun, with formerly mentioned Pizza Day! portraying a time in the school canteen with their favourite food — pizza, and the latter, Pool Party!, recounting an invitation of the cool kids over to the pool.
Words cannot quite capture the elation that THE AQUABATS! cultivated in their set, with highlights including groups of friends jumping around in an embrace during the only love song Red Sweater!, or the guy dressed in the swim cap, superhero mask, and the top of THE AQUABATS! uniform. Their half an hour was packed full and offered the Winter Circus a true piece of punk theatre.
By contrast, THE BOUNCING SOULS’ performance was markedly calm and muted, with more focus on the music than the theatre. Using Don’t You by SIMPLE MINDS, the band strolled onto the stage with polite waves and genuine smiles, then began with Hopeless Romantic. The amount of crowd-work was small, taking three songs before asking the venue to sing along to Manthem. This did not phase the crowd, perhaps happy for the time to save their energy, as they clapped and cheered between tracks. Frontman Greg Attonio introduced themselves during their cover of AVOID ONE THING’s Lean on Sheena. He also did take the time to dad dance during The Something Special which was only accentuated by the blazer/t-shirt/flat cap combination he was donning.
The second half of their set included a taste of what was to come for THE BOUNCING SOULS, including an unnamed song that they had finished recording two weeks prior, the end of which quickly pivoted to circle pit fodder East Coast! Fuck You!, their ode to their home state of New Jersey. This did mark the energy returning to the O2 Academy, as they focused on the all out punk of their 90s discography - this still warranted Attonio’s dad dancing as he jankily swayed around the middle of the stage in a way that was endearing. This calm before the storm was exactly what the room needed, as when LESS THAN JAKE arrived to close out the evening, it got boisterous.
LESS THAN JAKE’s Winter Circus was a picture of red and yellow, completed with lights stringing down from the ceiling and print outs of circus performers to each of the sides of the stage. The voiceover welcomed the O2 Academy to the show before the quintet opened with Nervous in the Alley, which quickly had the crowd moving as chaotically as the branded air-dancers to the back of the stage. The crowd-surfers continued to fly during History of a Boring Town, after which Chris DeMakes started the “Yorkshire” chant once again, beaming gleefully as he asked for it to be performed at his funeral.
While common for bands to play up being in their favourite city each date, there was a true air of genuineness as DeMakes and Roger Lima spoke over each other to explain how much they loved being in Leeds. The jest about making sure to give Leeds a Friday night to the glee, as the O2 Academy started a circle pit to Lie to Me, was palpable, as was the reminiscing about their shows in the city dating back to the mid 90s, gaining a satisfying amount of cheers when the crowd was asked who had seen them in The Cock Pit in 1998. As they mentioned, if you love what you do, it does not feel like work, and by the end of the set DeMakes had described them as the “five luckiest guys on the planet” to be able to play their seminal brand of ska punk for a living; their gratitude for their careers is visible not only in the pride on their faces when they play, but the time they take to acknowledge as many people in the crowd as they can find.
Back into the music and despite their ten album discography, they managed to balance quite well between their whole career. Hello Rockview took the majority, with Last One Out of Liberty City causing chaos, followed straight in with All My Best Friends Are Metalheads surprisingly early in the show. The single song from their newest album was propped up by Johnny Quest Thinks We’re Sellouts from Pezcore, highlighted by the skeleton men dancing across the stage and the proclamation that they could not play a show without it. LESS THAN JAKE could not help themselves but pick out a twenty-two year old in the crowd to remark that they were writing many of these songs when the younger concert-goers were not even born yet, making the comment before playing Happyman from 1996’s Losing Streak, but also made sure to joke on their OGs with a “we talk so you lot have time to get your energy back.”
The closing of the night felt more emotionally charged, bar tromboneist Buddy Schaub having a go at conducting the “Yorkshire” chant just after Sunny Side. The last pre-encore offering was Plastic Cup Politics, followed by the members leaving the stage to wait for the demand of their return. This came in a brief spell of “Yorkshire” - though by this point Leeds were “Yorkshire”-ed out - then DeMakes took a quiet moment to perform The Brightest Bulb Has Burned Out Alone. Look What Happened? felt emotional as the penultimate track, with the full band giving their most muted performance. To finish was Gainesville Rock City, where the O2 Academy took their last chance to move the pit from side to side, and the smoke machines ran to close out the Friday Night of Ska punk partying.
The Winter Circus was all that is well with 90s Ska: a no-pressure rock party entrenched in values of community and a deep love of subgenre that is hard to articulate. The love of the craft from LESS THAN JAKE is clear with the time taken to assemble the cream of the genre, as well as the time to create a tracklist to please any fan old and new. The evening was a joy from start to finish and was a perfect start to a weekend in North Yorkshire.
Words: Julia Brunton
Photos: Ace Cheng
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