Three songs into their performance at Manchester’s Phones4U
Arena, Fall Out Boy are in the process of dispatching their biggest hit and
arguable signature song This Ain’t a
Scene (It’s an Arms Race) when they realise that no-one can actually hear
it. Undeterred, frontman Patrick Stump shrugs and pulls out an acoustic guitar to
perform rarity Chicago is So Two Years
Ago unamplified, whilst bassist/bandleader Pete Wentz mugs cheekily for
selfies with fans at the front of the crowd. It’s a pleasingly spontaneous
moment in a show that often feels on-rails, lacking a maverick touch
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| Joe Trohman and Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy performing live in Manchester in 2014. (Credit to WENN.) |
The Illinois fun-punk stalwarts’ comeback hasn’t gone unnoticed,
or under the radar as such. Their return with Save Rock and Roll, crammed with glossy stadium-sized pop hooks,
has been warmly received and their UK tour, a year on from release, feels more
like a celebratory lap for the album and the hits. Opener The Phoenix, a ferocious jackhammer of a song, sets the tempo and
the band barely let up for the next ninety minutes. It’s brash, melodramatic
and for the most part, gloriously fun.
In spite of the pyrotechnics however, it feels quite
arena-by-numbers at points. New track Death
Valley is backed by hi-vis imagery of a desert basin, the excellent Alone
Together is prefaced by a speech about “being individual” and the band even
decamp to a b-stage for a “campfire moment with banjos” as they term it to
perform early cut Grand Theft
Autumn/Where Is Your Boy. FOB are tight, well-honed and great on the
melody. But even with the ecstatic response to hits like Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down, a sense of banality and a lack of identity
prevails, despite how riotously, shamelessly enjoyable it is.
Indeed, their weakest link, disarmingly, is Stump. A
sufferer of stage fright, his interactions are understandably tokenistic, and
the trilby-sporting singer often leaves the patter to the hyperactive Wentz. But
he also struggles vocally, straining on A
Little Less “Sixteen Candles”, A Little More “Touch Me”, and getting lost
under the instrumentation during a roaring Beat
It. He delivers some great lines – his impression of guest artist Elton
John on Save Rock and Roll’s title
track is hilariously spot on – and he is serviceable enough behind the
microphone, but more often than not, the inconsistency is jarring.
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| Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy performing live in Manchester in 2014. (Credit to WENN.) |
The rest shine periodically – drummer Andy Hurley introduces
Dance, Dance with a frantic drum
solo, and guitarist Joe Trohman shreds hard on a thrilling Thnks fr th Mmrs – but it is Wentz who drives them towards a
rousing finale. When they dispatch the electronica-rock of comeback single My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark
(Light ‘Em Up), the singalong is both deafening and soaring in equal
measure. By the time Wentz is fished out of the crowd following closer Saturday, it has gone past curfew. Few
will complain. Fall Out Boy may have stepped into safer territory with their
return; but there is still fun to be had in the ride alongside them to their
new destination.
