From Wentz I Came

ATTENDING: The Fall Out Boy concert on November 20th at The Palace of Auburn Hills even in the face of much ridicule. Prior to the show I was asked if I was 14-years-old. If I had any musical taste, whatsoever. If I was having a mid-life crisis and/or am I some sort of perv? The answers are no, no, no, and no.

Though, me and the missus did do shots of Pucker and slam beers in the parking lot and followed-up by sneaking in Jim Beam to pour into our Cokes. And I was wearing my Blake Lewis t-shirt. What is wrong with me?

Since the break-up of Weezer, I was desperately searching for a new band to call "my band." This band needed some angst, couldn't take itself too seriously, needed a "so-what" sense of style, good videos, and catchy music. Enter Fall Out Boy. They came at me in a perfect storm of all the qualities described above. I saw their video for "Dance, Dance" and downloaded their CD. Their lyrical focus on self-loathing, missed opportunities, lost loves, and the path not taken took me aback.

She says she's no good with words but I'm worse
Barely stuttered out
"A joke of a romantic" or stuck to my tongue
Weighed down with words too over-dramatic
Tonight it's "it can't get much worse"
Vs. "no one should ever feel like.." - opening lines of "Dance, Dance"

Why do these themes resonate with me? Who knows? I'm Gen X and I guess, deep inside, I'll always be angst-ridden. An angry, confused teen for life. That's me.

The performance was phenomenal. For a band that reached super stardom only two years ago, their arena presence blew me away. Lead vocalist Patrick Stump was so good I would swear he was voice tracking or lip syncing. But for only a few flaws and lyrical ad-libs, I would have said he did lip sync. He did not.

For those who like this sorta thing, here's the Detroit show set list.

1. Sugar, We're Goin' Down
2. Our Lawyers Made Us Change the Name of this Song So We Wouldn't Get Sued
3. Grand Theft Autumn / Where is Your Boy?
4. Hum Hallelujia
5. Of All the Gin Joints in All the World
6. I Slept with Someone in Fall Out Boy and All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me
7. A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More "Touch Me"
8. The Carpal Tunnel of Love
9. Don't You Know Who I Think I Am?
10. I'm Like A Lawyer with the Way I'm Always Trying to Get You Off (Me & You)
11. The (After) Life of the Party
12. Golden
13. Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner
14. Thriller
15. The Take Over. The Break's Over
16. XO
17. Mr Brightsides (cover of The Killers)
18. This Ain't a Scene, It's An Arms Race
19. Thnks fr the mmrs
20. Dance! Dance!
21. Saturday

OBSERVATIONS: Cheesy banter between songs is long dead. David Lee Roth and Paul Stanley wrote the book on the subject. The last book. Apparently modern day rock stars haven't read that book because the current banter consists of telling the crowd to "f' off" and that they "suck." We, the audience, were told at least 30 times how lame we were and to "f' off." Interesting approach. But the kids-these-days responded as if to show both Gym Class Heroes and Fall Out Boy that we were, indeed, worthy of attending their show. And what right does the lead singer of Gym Class Heroes have that he spent 3 or more minutes between each song talking about himself? Who are you? Henry Rollins? Shut up and play the 2 Gym Class Heroes songs I know and let's get to Fall Out Boy.

MOSHING: Kids-these-days don't mosh. They don't slam dance. In fact, I wonder what they even call what it is they do for the 30-seconds they do it. Fall Out Boy resorted to sending a 7-foot roadie into the crowd in an attempt to ramp up the mosh pit, and even then only about 11 people were actually moshing for no more than 1-minute. The punk teens of the 80s invented it, the angst-ridden 90s era Gen Xers perfected it, and I fear the mosh-pit might be slowly dying. God bless these kids, but they simply aren't angry. They see no reason to fatten someone's lip whilst getting their nose bloodied in return.

WONDERING: As in, one-hit-wonder. Poor, poor Plain White-Ts. This band might've had some promise as a rock band, but then "Hey There, Delilah" rocketed up the billboard charts and I'm prepared to pronounce this band dead on arrival. Sad, really, because their other songs are quite good - but sound nothing like "Hey There, Delilah." The Plain White-Ts realize this. They muddled through 8 songs and then gave us a 7-minute version of "Hey There, Delilah." Complete with one chorus that said, "hey there, Detroiters ...what's it like in the Motor City." The crowd, predictably, went crazy. This song closed their set as it is inevitably closing their careers.

Plain White Ts? You're sitting with Verve Pipe and Semisonic at that table over there near the kitchen. Sorry 'bout that.

Even after all the lead-singer verbal abuse, my friends laughing at me, and the feeling-old feelings, I would go see Fall Out Boy, again. Maybe someday they'll have enough albums and hit songs to actually have an encore.

Encore! Encore! Encore!