You Can't Replace a Legend

Live music eventually returned.

At first, everything was strange.

Masks.

Reduced capacity.

Socially distanced VIP photos.

The uncertainty of whether anyone was comfortable being in a room together.

But the crowds came back.

Pop Drunk Snot Bread gave Bowling for Soup another burst of creative energy. “Getting Old Sucks (But Everybody's Doing It)” connected immediately. “I Wanna Be Brad Pitt” even returned the band to radio stations that had not played new Bowling for Soup music in years.

Approaching the 30th anniversary felt almost impossible to process.

Thirty years of Bowling for Soup coincided with twenty years of A Hangover You Don't Deserve. For the first time, the band would embark on a full-album tour in its home country.

The band celebrated its 30th birthday with two nights at Lava Cantina in The Colony, Texas.

Night one was a retrospective, moving album by album through the band's history.

Night two was A Hangover You Don't Deserve performed in full.

Nobody knew it at the time, but it would be Chris Burney's final Bowling for Soup performance.

Soon afterward, the band traveled to Europe.

It was obvious to everyone that Chris was struggling physically, but no one knew the extent until he asked for a meeting backstage at the first show in Italy.

He needed medical attention, and without missing a beat, the guys sent him to the hospital with then-assistant tour manager Wyatt to help him along the way.

He was advised to get home immediately, and to the band and crew, the only decision that mattered was getting him home and healthy.

With roughly two hours' notice, and with Chris’s blessing, Jaret, Gary and Rob played their first show as a three-piece, opening for Avenged Sevenfold in front of thousands of people.

Next was Download Festival in front of 100,000 people.

Then a sold-out show in Belfast.

And finally, two sold-out nights in Dublin.

On the second Dublin night, during “Turbulence,” the weight of Chris not being there finally landed.

Band members cried.

Crew members cried.

People in the audience cried.

There was a piece missing.

The adrenaline that got everyone through all of these massive shows finally gave way to the reality that they had just played without Chris for the first dates in BFS history.

Bowling for Soup returned home with a major Hangover anniversary tour already scheduled.

Again, with Chris's blessing, the band continued.

The matching stage jerseys during these shows included Chris's jersey displayed in his place on stage.

Jaret used the puppet version of Chris from the “Getting Old Sucks” video to pay tribute to him at the end of each night, doing the “encore chant” Chris had done for so many years.

Nobody yet knew whether he would come back.

In fact, the tour began and ended with a huge question mark looming.

Eventually, Chris came to the difficult decision that his time in Bowling for Soup needed to end in the best interest of his health.

Bowling for Soup never considered replacing him.

They had already learned they could perform as a three-piece.

More importantly, they believed something else:

“You can't replace a legend.”

Anyone standing where Chris had stood would spend every night being compared to Chris Burney.

That felt unfair to the fans and, most of all, unfair to what Chris had built over three decades.

So the space remains his.

Bowling for Soup became a three-piece.

And something changed inside the band.

Jaret had historically carried much of the band's day-to-day decision-making.

In the new version, Gary and Rob became more involved.

Setlists.

Artwork.

Touring.

Creative decisions.

The future.

The three talk about everything.

On the road they are almost comically inseparable.

They wake up around the same time.

Go to the gym together.

Eat together.

Walk into the venue together.

Leave for the bus together.

Other bands sometimes think it is weird.

Bowling for Soup likes it that way.

There is an us-three-against-the-world feeling to the current version of the band.

And it is working.