If Fall Out Boy had a message for the sweaty, elbow-to-elbow crowd at Metro Wednesday night, it was, “Thanks for the memories, now let’s make some more.”
The Chicago band’s surprise homecoming gig (announced just two days prior and immediately selling out) was both a teaser of its upcoming March 24 record “So Much (for) Stardust,” while also marking a big, full-circle moment for the band, as frontman and Glenview native Patrick Stump explained early in the 90-minute set.
“Twenty years ago, I told my mom I was going to take a semester off [college] because we were headlining Metro and I wanted to see how that would work out,” he joked.
It was clearly a good wager. Stump and Wilmette-reared bandmates Pete Wentz (bass), Joe Trohman (guitar, currently on leave from the band) and Andy Hurley (drums) continue to be demigods of the pop punk scene, packing multi-platinum selling albums, Rolling Stone covers, stadium tours (like last year’s Hella Mega jaunt with Green Day and Weezer) and fans from Cardi B to Taylor Swift. They’ve become a verifiable notch in Chicago’s music history and, on a bigger scale, helped usher in a scene that oozes longevity and wins over new followers.
Yet, this year, as Fall Out Boy reaches a milestone — their debut “Take This To Your Grave” turns 20 in May — the bandmates also maybe found themselves at a crossroads. Their decision to go back to the beginning — playing places like Metro, finding their way back home to their first label (the eternally cool Fueled By Ramen) and early producer Neal Avron — is the best they could’ve made. The new material takes all they’ve learned and accomplished the past 20 years and combines it with their unflinching roots for an ultimate glow-up.
As Wentz shared during the set, “For the first time we tried to make a record that incorporated all Fall Out Boy albums and eras into one.”
“So Much (for) Stardust” is already being hailed for its return to FOB’s guitar-driven halcyon days, which was apparent as the band ripped through its first two singles live for the very first time . The band came out of the gates careening right into the dark opus “Love From the Other Side” to open the 19-song set. The volume was cranked for the track, a surround-sound pie that layered in the song’s juicy hooks and a polished chorus alongside Hurley’s brutal force that rattled every body awake, including that of Wentz, who took a near-nosedive stage jump into the crowd to start things off.
That song, and the album’s lead single “Heartbreak Feels So Good” (released just hours before the show) both bleed with the DNA of Fall Out Boy’s master hits — short and quippy, full of gumption and relatable themes, with just enough time padded in for a singalong. Few bands deliver a song structure as audience-centric as FOB does and that community has remained allegiant to the cause all these years, growing the band from North Shore basements and the Fireside Bowl to the prime time. Even on this night, matured fans wearing shirts like “retired Emo kid” clamored to surf their way to the stage to get closer, screaming the lyrics to songs like the timeless “Sugar, We’re Goin Down.”
It’s an experience to be in a small space full of band diehards — Wentz at one point thanked them for “whatever they did to get tickets” — with Metro continuing to up the ante in its 40th anniversary year..
“Walking up those stairs is the closest thing this band will have to church,” Wentz joked at one point, thanking Metro for the support. The setting gave the band incentive to also do something rare, dusting off “Calm Before The Storm” to play it live for the first time since 2007.
“The best memories happen in rooms like these with you guys,” said Wentz, also taking a moment to recall writing the track in the attic of Trohman’s parents’ house and asking the crowd to send love to the guitarist as he is spending time away to focus on his mental health.
“I think it’s awesome to be so open and release the stigma around it,” Wentz said about his bandmate. For this date, Trohman’s spot was ably occupied by his and the band’s longtime guitar tech Ben Young.Trohman’s absence, though, was palpable and we can only hope he’s OK and back soon as the band charts its course for the next 20 years.
And they will have good company in the years to come. The affable and catchy Games We Play opened the show, the trio being one of Wentz’s latest mentees whom the bassist signed to his DCD2 label imprint after hearing their viral hit “I Hope You’re Happy” last year. Touting them as the next big thing in the scene, Wentz quipped, “Listen to them before your friend’s little brother has to tell you about them.”
Set List
- Love From The Other Side
- The Phoenix
- Sugar, We’re Goin Down
- Uma Thurman
- Disloyal Order of Water Buffaloes
- Grand Theft Autumn/Where Is Your Boy
- American Beauty/American Psycho
- Dance, Dance
- Hum Hallelujah
- A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More “Touch Me”
- This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race
- Calm Before the Storm
- My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up)
- Heartbreak Feels So Good
- Chicago Is So Two Years Ago
- Thriller
- Thnks fr th Mmrs
- Centuries
- Saturday
