COLUMBUS — The Jonas Brothers kicked off the North American leg of their tour in Columbus with a trip to a local bowling alley, trading the stage for the lanes at Wayne Webb’s Columbus Bowl on the city’s South Side.
In a video shared on social media, Nick Jonas and his brothers Kevin and Joe shared their “awesome” experience at the alley. “This is a bowler’s bowling alley — there’s a difference. There’s no cosmic bowling happening here,” Nick Jonas said, with a caveat added in a caption later that “not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
The visit was no casual photo stop. Nick showed off the bowling balls and shoes he had brought with him, and offered to let Kevin borrow one of his bowling balls — an offer Kevin declined. Joe, watching his brother unpack his own gear, was unimpressed: “I don’t need all that; I just need strikes.”
Nick was the only brother to share a full score at the end of the video — a 204, a mark any league bowler would happily take. Kevin mentioned that he was on the varsity bowling team in high school, though it is unclear whether he also bowled an entire game; he was shown at the end of the video taking a videoconferencing call at the bowling alley.
The bowling stop was planned, not improvised. Nick expressed his intent to go bowling during the tour on a podcast the brothers released Oct. 15. “If I’m going to be stuck inside because the weather’s not great, I’m going to go bowling,” Nick said.
That instinct led the brothers to one of Columbus’ best-known bowling rooms. Wayne Webb’s Columbus Bowl is a serious bowler’s house — the kind of alley where touring musicians with their own equipment fit right in — and the brothers’ video gave the South Side business a burst of national attention as their tour leg got underway.
For Columbus, the visit was a lighthearted start to a big concert weekend in the Arena District, where the Jonas Brothers’ Nationwide Arena show anchors the North American leg’s opening stop. Before the first note was played, though, the tour’s first Columbus headline belonged to the lanes: a 204 game, a borrowed-ball refusal, and a hometown bowling alley that earned a pop star’s respect.