Gig review: Less Than Jake, The Bouncing Souls, The Aquabats and The Bar Stool Preachers at Rock City

I'm very glad I arrived on time to catch The Bar Stool Preachers. A band whose name I've admired on festival line ups but never managed to actually catch, this was the set to make me get my damn self down to see them next time I do.

“Who here is over forty?" asks frontman Tom McFaull, at one point. I had actually been thinking this myself. Gigs are such a fun space for people watching, and with time having been a-wandering since I saw Less Than Jake at one of my first Rock City gigs as a young teen, I'm looking around with a befuddled amusement wondering when we all stopped being slightly goofy young moshers and we're all forced to grow up, get jobs, and grow beards.

"...Get those knees working!” Again, I'd spent the day questioning if I still had the knees for trumpets and ska - but quite frankly sir, it wasn't easy back in 2002 either, what with Rock City's notoriously sticky floors. Evidently however, Tom’s knees are in excellent condition, and his energy, dancing and gift of hyping the audience (no small task for a 6.30 set start) kicks off the night with aplomb.

The next thirty minutes flow by in a buzz of tattoos, turquoise hair and neon red-green swirling lights. Suicide Girls is a fun blast from the past (is that still a thing?), while latest release Pick a Side is a classic mix of anti-fascist punk that throws shade on Nottingham’s own Sleaford Mods and their notorious 2023 gig in Madrid. 

What truly makes the set is the acapella sing-a-long moments to Flatline and Bar Stool Preacher which really ease the crowd into the gig and kick out a nice dose of joyousness. The energy and fun these guys had made me smile a lot, providing an excellent start to the evening.

The Aquabats! are next and I know it's going to be quite the performance when eight very sprightly men dressed in blue lycra come bursting onto the stage. Most people find it difficult enough to get a band together, never mind find eight people to wear swimming caps, goggles, wrestling belts and paper crowns, so I'm impressed. They throw four giant blow up sharks into the crowd and we’re off on some sort of madcap underwater Smurfish adventure.

I'm not familiar with The Aquabats! but it seems they once had a TV show (The Aquabats Super Show) which I must see-to-believe with my own eyes when I get home. These guys have been going since the late 90s, so assuming some of them have children, and I’m highly amused to consider what their kids think of how utterly bonkers their dad's band is. A set of heavy, fast, hyped up ska ensues. I feel as if I've got high off too many Skittles and wonder if I've become too serious, but  there are evidently some die hard fans in the audience who are loving it.

For the third support this evening, the mighty Bouncing Souls enter the stage to Don't You (Forget About Me) by Simple Minds. Not quite as chatty as the Preachers or as zany as The Aquabats, but these guys are clearly veterans at playing a tight set to an adoring audience, with songs like Lean on Sheena and True Believer being highlights.

I’m almost feeling a bit ska-ed out at this point so I'm on the balcony (I always forget about Rock City’s prime viewing spot upstairs!) - there’s a bit of a circle pit happening at the front, and at one point I’m amused to spot the participants now being very silly and making funny faces at each other. 

I feel like I would have enjoyed the Souls much more had it been a standalone gig or if I were more familiar with their music, but it was clearly a great set.

Then, after some sound and inflatable-wavy-arm-man checking, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Less Than Jake roll onto the stage and it’s like seeing old friends once again. 

This is one of those bands whose lyrics live in full somewhere in my head, and with songs about feeling young, frivolous, lost and hopeless, for myself (and I expect a lot of the audience) they are a band that raised me as a young teen. I’m sure my fourteen-year-old self would be stoked to know that many years later I’m back in Rock City, still enjoying the sounds and here to write up a review for LeftLion. But that’s enough of the sentimentality.

Bringing their carnival tinged Winter Circus Tour to Notts, they kick off the night with Nervous in the Alley from Hello Rockview (1998) before launching into the heavy nostalgia of History of a Boring Town. Funnily enough, back in the day I used to associate this song with getting out of Nottingham. Now having left and returned as an adult I don’t find it boring anymore - perhaps a testament to the buzzing culture that has built up in Notts, or just to growing up.

Between songs there’s lots of fun banter between frontmen Chris and Roger, talking about memories of Rock City, floundering questions around staples of British culture (what is the difference between cottage and shepherds pie?) and pulling a young lad called Sam on stage to ask him about his rather mad mullet. Roger still has an infectious smile and their lighthearted humour is refreshing, evoking days gone by when things did not feel so heavy culturally in the world.

Feelings swell through the crowd when All My Best Friends Are Metalheads begins to play mid-show, opening of course with the familiar 1967 clip from a speech by American newscaster Victor Lundberg titled An Open Letter to My Teenage Son. It strikes me that coming into contact with message like this one - denouncing discrimination and celebrating difference - probably had quite a positive effect on my growing teenage mind, and for that I thank Less Than Jake.

Familiar classic after classic are played throughout the set (classics if you are a LTJ fan): Johnny Quest Thinks We're Sellouts, The Science of Selling Yourself Short, and The Ghosts of Me and You, interspersed with newer tracks such as Sunny Side from their 2024 album Unchartered. The guys thank everyone for sticking with them while playing new music, which they describe as their ‘fuel’, and as always, I’m reminded to go home and check out their most recent stuff.

Finally, after a very lively Plastic Cup Politics, the band exit and return for a mighty encore of three absolute anthems - The Brightest Bulb Has Burned Out / Screws Fall Out, Look What Happened, and the heart-warming Gainesville Rock City, for which they of course swap the lyrics to 'Nottingham Rock City'.

“We've played here nine times, and this is one of those venues that feels home to us,” says Roger, and I have to agree. I may wince when I say that it’s been 24 years since I first saw these guys play at Rock City, and a lot of life has happened in that time, but it’s sure good to remember the bands and places that made you fall in love with music. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Less Than Jake performed at Rock City on 3rd March 2026, supported by The Bar Stool Preachers, The Aquabats! and The Bouncing Souls.

rock-city.co.uk