I swear, I never go to arena shows anymore. Yet somehow, for the second time in less than a month, I found myself in a hockey barn. Last month it was the phenomenal Slayer farewell tour. This month, Thursday September 6th to be exact, it was Fall Out Boy at that same Van Andel Arena in downtown Grand Rapids. The trouble started way back in February. I wanted to surprise my then 16 old daughter with something fun for Valentine’s Day, so I got her FOB tickets. As the Slayer show approached, I got more and more excited. The closer Fall Out Boy got, the more I was filled with dread. Fortunately, the worst of my fears were mostly unfounded.
My baby girl Alex is 17 now, and just started her senior year of high school. She had enough enthusiasm about the show for the two of us. We made our way downtown, found free street parking, and got into the venue 15 or 20 minutes before the 7pm start time. Alex decided she wanted to get some merch, and the lines were insane! I blame it on you indecisive millenials that never carry cash. We were still in line when Every Time I Die went on promptly at 7. Alex bought a pretty cool FOB jacket for $60. (T-shirts were $35, less than Slayer.) We made it to our nosebleed seats by 7:10pm. We sat in the top row isle, about ¾ of the way back. This was strategic on my part, so we wouldn’t have to get up or move to let people out of the row.
I’m pretty indifferent to ETID. A dozen or more years ago, a friend tried to get me into them, but it never took. On paper at least, they would seem like the band from this bill most in my wheelhouse. They weren’t bad, but they’re also not the kind of band that translates well to an arena setting. It came across as pretty standard hard rock. They weren’t as screamy or heavy as I remember. The 20 minutes of their set that we saw was enough.
Machine Gun Kelly was sandwiched in the middle of the bill. White rappers are definitely not my thing, but MGK was not really what I expected. First of all, he had a full, but underutilized band with guitar, bass, drums and a DJ. My first impression was that he was part Kid Rock and part Vanilla Ice. It was like sensitive alt-rock rap or something. I figured he was called Machine Gun because he spit out his rhymes so fast, but that definitely wasn’t the case. He said something about the ‘elephant in the room’, and then dissed Eminem. I couldn’t really understand what he was talking about. Dude has a mumbling problem. My teenage daughter had to explain it to me.
At one point MGK even played a bit of Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So”. When he took his shirt off and shared his impressive physique, things really got serious. The stage had a long, phallic extension that went almost all the way to the back of the ice rink. He took his cordless mic, (and a couple of big bodyguards), and worked his way around it through the massive crowd. I’m definitely not going to start listening to Machine Gun Kelly albums at home, but I didn’t hate it nearly as much as I thought I would. I was mostly entertained for his 45 minute set.
About 9pm, a one minute timer started counting down on the big screen behind the stage. The kids started to lose their cool. There were actually screens all over the place. The stage setup was fairly basic and open, so being able to see wasn’t really a problem. They opened with a song that I didn’t know, which is not really surprising. The over/under, for betting purposes, was that I would know six songs. If you chose the under, you would have got paid. I recognized five Fall Out Boy songs. They were “Sugar, We’re Going Down”, “American Beauty/American Psycho”, “Uma Thurman”, “Centuries” and “My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark”. “Uma Thurman” was my favorite, because they showed clips from Thurman’s roles in Quentin Tarantino films on the screens. Sometimes I forget how much I love those movies.
The band clearly uses pre recorded backing tracks to fatten up the beats and add to the danceability. I did catch myself doing something similar to low effort dancing on a couple of occasions. One song came from the movie Big Hero 6, and they showed scenes from that film. They also played a song where they showed all clips of Princess Diana in the background. Another song had someone playing Fortnite on the big screen. The images on the screen kept my mind mostly occupied, even if the music didn’t. The music sort of reminded me of mediocre Journey. For a couple of tunes they rolled out a grand piano. Those songs were more like mediocre Elton John.
At one point, Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz played a song or two from a small stage in the back of the arena. Then that stage went 30 or more feet in the air and they played a couple more. It seemed sort of dangerous until you looked close and could see that they were safely tethered to the stage. That’s kind of a metaphor for the whole show. It was safe arena rock trying to pass itself off as edgy. People love to say that FOB has legitimate punk and hardcore roots. That may be true, but there’s no sign of that at this point.
Frontman Stump never spoke to the audience. That job was handled by celebrity bassist Wentz. He didn’t say anything particularly profound, but he didn’t embarrass himself either. There was fire shooting all over the place, including from the head of Wentz’s bass. There were also plenty of explosions over the course of the 95 minute set. I could see my earplugless daughter wince every time there was a loud boom. There was certainly a good amount of spectacle and entertainment value, even if there wasn’t much substance. Fall Out Boy is definitely not trying to please 40 something punks. Ultimately Alex enjoyed herself, and that made the whole thing worthwhile.