I spent a lot of the last year thinking about Fall Out Boy. Their most recent album – a bit of a return to form named So Much (For) Stardust – was released in March, and became my most listened to and likely favorite album of the year. I also scoured Twitter pretty much every show of their tour to see what rarities would appear in Patrick Stump’s piano medley and the surprise song “Magic 8 Ball” slot each night. Their August 5 show – the 12th time overall I’d seen them – in Jersey was a highlight of my summer.
2023 was not an anachronism either. I have a wall in the music nook dedicated to Fall Out Boy posters and etc., the whole catalogue in various physical and digital formats a couple of times over, and oh yeah, a big honking Fall Out Boy tattoo in the middle of my forearm for all to see.
So, I must be a real dyed in the wool fan right? Listening to Take This To Your Grave back in 2003, attending the Believers Never Die Tour (probably Parts 1 and 2), and an original Overcast Kid right?
Well, not quite…
The first time I heard Fall Out Boy, like most people, was in 2005 when the 1-2 punch of “Sugar, We’re Going Down” and “Dance, Dance” blew up on my radio. I liked the songs, especially “Sugar”, and considering I spent an inordinate amount of time in Hot Topic, one would think I immediately went out and bought From Under the Cork Tree right?
Once again, not quite.
You see, I wouldn’t describe myself as a music snob in high school – I don’t think anyone who likes Bon Jovi as much as I did (and mostly still do) could even be considered a music snob – but I was a bit… closed-minded to buying music from “new” bands (Yes, I was still buying CDs in the mid 2000s and carrying a MASSIVE CD book to school every day). I would listen to songs I liked on the radio, and sometimes have friends burn them onto CDRs for me, but to actually buy a CD? I generally reserved that for old and new records from “classic” bands that I already loved.
Circa senior year, I got an iPod Mini. However, since I was technologically challenged and our family computer was old as dirt even then, I had a friend load my whole CD collection onto the MP3 player. I really had no way of adding more to it for about a year until I got a laptop freshman year of college. Meaning that for most of 2005 and 2006 I would hear and enjoy singles from bands like Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance (who’ll probably get a similar blog entry to this sometime next year) on the radio or see them on TV appearances, but I didn’t actually deep-dive into their music.
Even after getting to college, getting a laptop, and being able to add more music to my iPod (I was still buying CDs at this point, and wouldn’t buy any digital music until I think 2010, so suffice to stay I remained behind the times there) I still didn’t expand my musical palette all that much. However, I did think the cover for Fall Out Boy’s new record was really cool, and found “Thanks fr the Mmrs” incredibly catchy. I still didn’t buy the album though. It would still take another year and half for things to change.
Circa winter of 2008 into 2009, I was – as the kids would say – going through some shit. Suffice to say, I was in a bad place mental health-wise and decided it was time to make some changes in my life. One of the least important in the grand scheme, but most important for the purposes of the story I’m telling right now, was to expand my music library. When I went home for Christmas 2008/the 2009 winter break, I made a goal for myself to buy a new from a new record from a new (for my library) artist each week I was home.
As you’ve probably guessed, a Fall Out Boy record was the first I picked up. I finally got around to buying the “album with the cool cover” Infinity on High. So of course I listened to the record and immediately fell in love with the band from that moment right?
Once more for the people in the back, not quite.
I did listen to at least most of the record once, and I did instantly adore the opening track “Thriller” – which is still one of my top 2 FOB songs – but TBH I didn’t adore it. However, a few days later my friends and I were putzing around Manhattan, specifically the old Virgin Megastore in Times Square. I came upon Fall Out Boy’s then newly released record Folie A Deux, and after some cajoling from a friend who was very into them, I bought the record. That night I loaded it onto my computer and in-turn onto my iPod, and this was the moment right?
Well, not qui….. actually, I’m kidding, it totally was.
The first song on the record, “Disloyal Order of Water Buffaloes” completely bowled me over. I vividly remember listening to it 3 times in a row and thinking “Well, this is one of my new favorite songs.” (Fun fact: It remains my favorite Fall Out Boy song to this day). I listened to the whole album straight through, then listened to the whole album two more times that night, with songs like “The (Shipped) Gold Standard, “Coffee’s for Closers”, and the ebullient “What a Catch, Donnie” immediately enraptured me. It’s cliched to say, but the alchemy of Pete Wentz’s cacophony of lyrics and Patrick Stump’s melodic mastery is up there with the best duos in pop/rock history. Also, since they unfortunately rarely get their due, Joe Trohman and Andy Hurley are vital to the band. In particular, the latter’s drums.
I following day I listened to Infinity on High all the way through, and while I didn’t like it as much as Folie, I still liked it more than enough to know this was a band I would be listening to a lot form then on. By the time I went back to Stony Brook at the end of January, I had bought the rest of the catalogue and they became my most listened to band for most of that spring semester.
The first time I saw Fall Out Boy was at a Today Show taping in May of 2009 with that aforementioned FOB-loving friend as well as a few other people. To be honest, I don’t remember that much about it other than it was incredibly early in the morning, they played “What a Catch, Donnie” amongst a few other songs, and I was taken aback that Pete and Patrick weren’t that much taller than me. I saw them twice more in 2009, both times opening for Blink-182 on their (first) reunion tour. The first time at Jones Beach, and the second – and far more consequential show was that October at Madison Square Garden. See, for a long time, it seemed like I had attended the last show Fall Out Boy would ever play.
You see, while I had spent most of 2009 falling in love with Fall Out Boy, the band had spent a large portion of the year – as they would recount half-a-decade later – imploding. Despite my love for it, Folie A Deux had proven to be a commercial disappointment, the pop-punk emo wave the band had launched into the mainstream having crested, and it’s failure only exacerbated issues each member was dealing with in the wake of fame. Shortly after the MSG show, the band announced their (now infamous) hiatus. Initially I was bummed, as this new (to me) band was seemingly done just as my interest was cresting. However, in the end, it turned out the best thing that could have happened to my Fall Out Boy fandom.
You see, over the next 3 years, the band remained in my regular music rotation throughout life moments like graduating from college. However, since there was nothing new on the horizon, I was able to dive into everything I’d “missed.” I devoured magazine articles about the band, poured over YouTube videos of everything from late night television appearances to terrible quality recordings of VFW shows from 2003, and in general got caught up on pretty much all the Fall Out Boy lore one could want to know. At that point, I was more then content with FOB’s place as one of my favorite bands, but one whose story was finished. Then 2013 happened.
I still very distinctly remember waking up late on a Monday morning in February of 2013 – it was the day after the Super Bowl, and at the time I worked nights, so suffice to say I slept in – to a slew of text messages and tweets about a new Fall Out Boy single, which initially led me to believe I was dreaming before I quickly realized it was real. Not only that, but there was a new album coming and they were playing a show in Chicago that night. I quickly bought the song – “My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up)” – and hit play on a new era of Fall Out Boy.
There were more arena shows, shed shows with Paramore and Whiz Khalifa, and even two trips out to the band’s homeland of Chicago to see them at Wrigley Field. The first in 2018 was a group trip that remains immensely special to me and included the MANIA Experience as well, and the second in 2021 was our first time traveling following COVID to see the band on the pandemic-delayed Hella Mega Tour with Green Day and Weezer.
All of which brings us full circle to 2023, where I sit 15 years later with Fall Out Boy remaining one of my favorite bands, Folie A Deux in my top 5 records of all time, and a slew of memories (many fantastic, and indeed some that truly aren’t so great) behind me.
Oh, and of course there’s more to come in 2024.
See you a couple of times in a couple of states next year boys,
Long Live the Car Crash Hearts.
B-Sides and Rarites 