Start of the Show
The show started at 7:00 with the State Champs going on first. The State Champs are an American pop-punk band from Albany, New York, formed in 2010. This is my 3rd time seeing them and they get better each performance. In October of 2014 they released an acoustic EP titled The Acoustic Things and their second full-length album Around the World and Back a year later and most recently their record Living Proof, was released on June 15, 2018. The band just finished their run on the final Van’s Warped Tour over the summer and then signed on to join Fall Out Boy on their Mania Tour in September. As soon as the lights went down and the house music turned off, the crowd was still piling in considering the doors had only been open for an hour. Fans were screaming and cheering as the guys of State Champs ran on stage, jumping right into their song “Dead and Gone.”
State Champs lived up to the hype from the last time I saw them perform. Last fall’s Billy Talent show is the measuring stick I have in my head for impressiveness from bands. They played 8 songs that night and they were just straight rockers. The band played their hits songs in the pop-punk realm such as ‘Elevated,’ and their most recent hit ‘Criminal.’ They did intermix a slow song called ‘Our Time To Go’ which got everyone on their feet and using their flashlights. Sometimes opening sets that can tend to drag in the middle but theirs’s didn’t. Their set had everybody moving all night, and even got many new fans after their set. Secrets was the band’s encore and ended the set perfectly with their best and most known song.
After about 45 minutes later it was time for Machine Gun Kelly. This was quite possibly the strangest opening act for a pop-punk band like Fall Out Boy. He was born Colson Baker and later took the stage name of Machine Gun Kelly. He is a Cleveland-raised former juvenile offender, he was a teenage dad, and is currently most known, not for his rapping, but his latest conflict with Eminem. Machine Gun Kelly truly rose to fame with his song “Bad Things,” a duet with Camila Cabello, a former member of Fifth Harmony. His set was kind of all over the place. For the first half of his set, MGK pranced around the stage rapping some of his new music. However, his set took a weird and unusual turn when he picked up the guitar. He began strumming and singing Weezer’s, ‘Say It Ain’t So’ which I found quite bizarre. Weezer is another band I love but, for some reason a rapper singing the alternatives band song did not mix well for me. After performing his biggest song ‘Bad Things’ he grabbed his guitar once more. He slowed down the entire set and played a hauntingly beautiful song called ‘Rehab.’ After he performed that song I was entranced by it and him. I wasn’t a huge fan of his raps, but when he sang it changed my perspective. If he continued with more songs like ‘Rehab’ I would definitely listen to him more.
Fall Out Boy Performance
The time had come Fall Out Boy was next. Although the crowd only had to wait 45 minutes it felt like an eternity. The room went pitch black, it was finally time for the main event.
Despite their tour being called “Mania,” Fall Out Boy was able to pack Bankers Life Fieldhouse and turn it into an intimate concert for every person at the show. Lead singer Patrick Stump, guitarist Joe Trohman, drummer Andy Hurley and bassist Pete Wentz returned to Indianapolis for the first time since 2015, a tour I also went to and celebrated my 16th birthday at.
Even though they’re currently on an arena tour, there were no elaborate costumes or dancers, if you include the dancing llamas normal. It felt like I was just watching four old friends playing their favorite songs for thousands of people. Even though the band is currently on tour supporting their latest album “Mania,” their set list mixed songs from just about every album in their collection, something everyone at the show could enjoy. The band opened with ‘Disloyal of Water Buffaloes’ a song off of their last album before they split in 2010. The band is now back together and in full swing, but all fans can agree with me that 2010 was a sad year. A
fter the 5 minute song the band transitioned into a powerful song called ‘The Phoenix,’ which featured a quick glimpse at Wentz’s flame-throwing guitar. They performed their most well-known song, ‘Sugar We’re Going Down’ early on in the set, which usually would’ve caused people to leave, I’ve seen it happen, but Fall Out Boy was so infectious one wouldn’t have wanted to leave their show. One of the best things that the band included were the beautiful graphics that played during each song my personal favorites included the clips of the animated film “Big Hero 6” when it performed ‘Immortals,’ a song from the film’s soundtrack and when the band performed ‘I Don’t Care’ the graphics on the screen included movie and television scenes where someone was flipping someone else off it gave the audience some laughs. They also displayed scenes of classic films like “Pulp Fiction” and “Kill Bill” when they performed their hit song ‘Uma Thurman.’ Through the duration of the 90-minute set, each member had their time to shine, which most bands don’t usually show. About midway through their set Patrick brought out a grand piano and put on his best Elton John impression for ‘Save Rock & Roll,’ which is a collaboration on their record of the same name. This portion on the piano also included a stripped-down piano solo of ‘Young and Menace.’ The biggest solo highlight for me, was Andy’s drum solo, which had him suspended above the crowd playing along to popular hip-hop songs. He was one of the first people that I saw playing live that truly made me want to be a drummer. It felt like a flashback to the first time I had seen them, it was an amazing feeling. Throughout Andy’s solo the rest of the boys moved to the B stage, where his solo was taking place and to make it even better the B stage was less than 20 feet away from me.
Songs performed on this stage included ‘Dance Dance,’ ‘Wilson (Expensive Mistakes),’ and ‘Thnks Fr Th Mmrs.’ The stage rose up to the upper levels so that fans located higher up could experience what fans on the floor had been experiencing all night. As the show was drawing to a close the band performed ‘Centuries’ which got all the fans who weren’t already on their feet standing. The boys left the stage after Centuries, which caused every person in the arena to chant for the band’s return and roughly 2 minutes later they returned to perform two more songs, ‘My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up)’ and ‘Saturday.’ The show ended on a high note.
What Music Concerts Are to Me
Concerts are a feeling unlike any other. Music allows us to connect with people; concerts allow us to connect with people and that’s what is so special: human connection.
For young and upcoming bands, concerts can make you. There aren’t any skip buttons at concerts. Each one is its own unique experience. Music in of itself is something that every day is life-changing. Music helps you to realize that you’re not alone in the world. That there is someone, somewhere out there, who feels the same way that you do and I think concerts are the thing that make audiences realizes they’re all there to support a band the love and adore.
The atmosphere of a concert is something that can’t be copied and Fall Out Boy made sure that their show was unlike any other.
