The sun lowers beneath the horizon, the countdown clock pops up on the jumbo screens, and the crowd chants begin - “5, 4, 3, 2, 1” - And then the beginning dissonant guitar noise of “Disloyal Order of the Water Buffaloes” pipes out of the sound system, and the camera focuses on a young woman in a nurse’s uniform taking notes before panning to the very bearded and always hatted Fall Out Boy frontman, Patrick Stump, laying in a hospital bed as he sings the opening lines:
“I’m coming apart at the seams, pitching myself for leads in other people’s dreams…”
And as he stands up off of the hospital bed and starts to remove the hospital gown he’s wearing to reveal his concert outfit, the crowd erupts in screams.
That’s how Fall Out Boy’s festival-circuit production, Days of Fall Out Past begins. The band has said before that they are not ones for nostalgia, but Days of Fall Out Past is not about nostalgia, not fully. It’s about celebrating the past, while also nodding at what’s to come in the future for the band that most would list as part of the 2000s Emo Trinity. If you’re familiar with me or my content, you already know that I am a massive Fall Out Boy fan and have seen this production now seven times and about to see it one final time before the band officially takes a break to start their new era of music (of which we know nothing about yet). As I get ready to see it one more time on the beach in Ocean City, Maryland, I want to look back and reflect on all of the highs and lows of Days of Fall Out Past.
Grand production isn’t a new game for Fall Out Boy. If you were lucky enough to attend their 2023 Tourdust or 2024 So Much for (2our)Dust sets, you were treated to an Alice in Wonderland-inducing fantasy world complete with a massive blow-up Doberman based off Blitz the mascot for the So Much for Stardust album (RIP Blitz) and a large puppet snail. You were even treated to a magic trick (are you watching closely?) from Pete Wentz. However, with Days of Fall Out Past, Pete wanted to up the ante and celebrate all of the eras of this little pop punk band from Chicago that started out as Pete Wentz’s side project.
Paying homage to both the infamous X-Men storyline and the Christopher Nolan movie, Inception, the set takes us on a journey into Fall Out Boy’s past, starting with Patrick Stump waking up within a coma-induced dream and leading into songs from Take This To Your Grave, they shepherd us through the various Fall Out Boy albums, and to help us relive the different albums. As we begin the journey through the records, each era is marked by certain set pieces and visual spectacles to keep the audience engaged.
The Take This to Your Grave section showcases a larger than life futon, reminiscent of the one featured on the album cover. When we get to Infinity On High, the crew unboxes “Franklin” the sheep from the album cover and he is hoisted in the air and flies overhead as they play. They use the inflatable, oversized bears from the cover of Folie A Deux to mark that era and roll out a giant volcano with floating crown for Save Rock & Roll. The most touching piece of the set, however, comes at the end with their grand finale of “Saturday.” As they play, the video backdrop displays a mosaic of different videos of them from different points in their career; from the silly home videos they made in the early years to their music videos and interviews, fans get to tear up with that bittersweet nostalgia as Pete floats up into the air attached by a bundle of balloons, Up-style. If you’re wondering if there’s any pay off for the opening sequence with Patrick in a hospital bed, you’re in luck as that comes back around by the end of the production.
Now, I can keep waxing poetic about the set design because there are some truly entertaining pieces, but I really want to dive into the set list because it’s a nice blend of their radio singles and the songs off the albums that are considered fan favorites. So for every “Sugar We’re Going Down”, and “Centuries,” you get “Bang the Doldrums” and “The Kids Aren’t All Right.” Of course, since the set is done in sequential order of album release, their big hits like the aforementioned “Sugar” come early on in the set. The only songs in the set that aren’t played in order of release are “Centuries” and “Saturday” (both are the encore songs), the songs that Patrick chooses to play on piano for his solo medley, and then, of course, whatever song they choose that night to play for the Magic Eight Ball.
What is the Magic Eight Ball, you ask? It is Fall Out Boy’s part of the set that is unpredictable (well, except over the last few months, it’s become more predictable). They started the gimmick during Tourdust and have continued it here; a Magic Eight Ball appears behind them and Pete asks them what they should play next or if they should just end the show. During their typical tours, the Eight Ball became a menace, an unhinged segment that resulted in deep cuts, unreleased tracks, and even songs off their album Evening Out With Your Girlfriend being played for thousands. However, since doing the festival circuit, the Eight Ball has become more predictable with the songs “GINASFS” and “Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet” getting played most often.
Fall Out Boy’s choice to opt for a Taylor Swift-like Eras tour is very appropriate for them. While all of us would love for the band to perhaps tour off just one album to celebrate its anniversary, much like other bands, because they have kept putting out albums since their return from hiatus, they have found themselves with fans with new entry points where their albums from 2003 or 2005 are not their favorite or most popular. They recognize that they are a band with several hit albums, just not one, as evident by the number of radio and streaming hits they have that span several albums. Just take a look at their top songs on Spotify, and they range from their 2015 album, American Beauty/ American Psycho to the album that put them on the map, From Under the Cork Tree. Doing an eras production bodes well for a band like Fall Out Boy because it ensures that fans from all different entry points can still have a good time, while the band still treats each album in its own special way (even MANIA, my poor frustrated beauty gets at least one song to celebrate it). This gives fans of those albums a chance to celebrate them and hear songs off those albums that maybe they haven’t heard live in awhile.
The last thing we need to discuss is the performance itself. If you follow the band closely, you know that after the hiatus, Joe Trohman, their lead guitarist, had to have surgeries for his back. Years of doing his wild guitar spins finally caught up with him. Therefore, he doesn’t move around the stage with as much high speed energy as he used to, reserving it all for killer riffs and guitar solos. Same with Pete, who’s not doing as many “around the worlds” with his bass anymore. In a surprising reversal from their pre-hiatus days, it’s Patrick Stump who has turned into a true frontman over the years that keeps the crowd energy alive. He’s the one running around the stage offering up smiles to the fans, doing crowd work during the songs, and talking so much more than he used to in between songs. Patrick has said in recent interviews that now that he and Joe have become better guitarists in their own rights, they can now change out the different parts of the songs each of them play live. This has allowed Patrick a chance to step away from the mic stand and use the mic to walk the stage, something we never saw him do in the early years. The shy boy who hid behind the mic stand and his hats is no more, and in his place is a more confident, stage veteran, that will carry on even if there is a sound issue or, he forgets the lyrics briefly.
Days of Fall Out Past is an impressive feat to haul around to different festivals where stage set ups can vary, and Fall Out Boy has managed to overcome everything from stage size to set length, cutting smartly where they need to if they need to work within a smaller time window. Realistically, this production could span a full three hours, much like Swift’s Eras tour, and, if us fans had our way, it would. However, what they have given us is a celebration of a band that has stuck around through the good times and the bad; a band who constantly pushes the envelope with their sound and never apologizes for being who they are and what they love; and a band that has created a devoted fanbase of Overcast Kids, Car Crash Hearts, Youngbloods, and the Last of the Real Ones. So, at the end of the September, I’ll be standing out in the heat, cursing the sand just like Anakin Skywalker, just so I can have one last trip down the Fall Out Boy timeline just for one more time this year.
Check out this photo gallery from Fall Out Boy’s Days of Fall Out Past show in Minnesota. Image credits: Bethany Bunce
