Up-Load UK, Gigs News & reviews Fall Out Boy Review

Fall Out Boy And Friends Fall Into Rock City

It was a cold night (as usual) in Nottingham and the huge crowd were queuing right round the building waiting to get in to see the hottest band of the moment, Fall Out Boy. The whole tour sold out rapidly and tickets have been like gold dust, and have been changing hands for a small fortune on ebay. The lucky ones were here tonight, stood in the freezing cold, most wearing next to nothing, but all very excited. Once the doors opened they were running through the venue, up to the main room, and straight to the barrier to secure their place for the night. Pretty soon all 1,350 fans were crammed in and we were ready to go ………..

First on stage tonight were Nightmare Of You from New York who list in their influences The Smiths, The Clash and The Cure and their sound definitely has strong splatterings of all of these. The lead singer Brandon Reilly (ex The Movielife) has a really strong vocal sound and all the tracks are belted out in the same crisp, clear manner. The young crowd really seem to love them and they are received very enthusiastically with hands up in the air clapping and cheering throughout the set.

Tonight they played lots of songs from their self titled album including, ‘The days go by oh so slow’, ‘In the bathroom is where I want you’, ‘Dear scene, I wish I were deaf’, ‘Thumbelina’, ‘My name is trouble’ and ‘I want to be buried in your backyard’. All the tracks were as good as the first and we can strongly recommend that you get yourselves a copy and have a listen

At one point Brandon said to the crowd “ We are Nightmare Of You from New York” and the crowd cheered, then he said “ We are the band named Fall Out Boy” and the roof was raised by the screams from the crowd who were obviously looking forward to tonight’s headliners.

Before they finished their set Brandon said ‘We are Nightmare Of You from NYC and this is our last song, thanks for having us’ the crowd had obviously loved their set as they gave them a really good cheer and showed their appreciation. If you would like to check them out yourselves they are playing in March with The Delays on a tour and are also doing a few headlining gigs of their own. We believe you will be seeing and hearing lots from these guys in 2006.

Next up on stage tonight are Gym Class Heroes and their Hip Hop / Reggae / Rock sound certainly is a million miles away from what the crowd have just had from Nightmare Of You, but they seem to go down well with the crowd.. After their first track they introduce themselves by saying “We are Gym Class Heroes and we are from Geneva New York State” the crowd were obviously happy with what they had hear so far and gave them a very good welcome.

Their second track tonight blends the rock sounds from the guitars and drums with the unmistakable hip hop vocals from Travis their frontman, it really is good to see a hip hop style band playing live instruments instead of just recorded samples. After the second track was finished Travis said to the crowd “ I mean this shit in the most sincere fuckin’ way , but you guys are the maddest crowd so far. We have a record coming out over here in February and this is a track from it” with this they go into the albums (The Papercut Chronicles) title track ‘Papercuts’ It has a pounding guitar beat with continuous rapping vocals and really is a monster track that is sure to do well when released here.
Travis then said to the crowd “I was in Leeds a couple of days ago and had to take a taxi and that was the craziest taxi driver I have ever seen, so I would like to dedicate this track to him. This is called ‘Taxi Driver’” The lyrics to this track are really clever and include the names of over ten bands cleverly disguised within the lines of the ‘tale’ all mixed into a catchy tune that is perfectly delivered by the band.

The crowd interaction is great with Travis constantly talking to them in between tracks, he asks them “Are you guy’s having fun tonight or what? Ok then, let’s make some noise” the crowd obviously comply with his request as they all scream and shout at the top of their voices, he then asks them “Are you guy’s looking forward to Fall Out Boy?” (more screams) “Ok I need to know where the ladies are at” with this a thousand arms go up into the air and with a giggle Travis says “This track is called Make Out Club.” They definitely have a great sound and the crowd are waving their hands in the air throughout and really showing their appreciation to the band. The track seems to include a sample of the Cat Stevens hit ‘Wild World’ which, of course, the band play live on their instruments.

They go quickly into their next track which is called ‘Girlfriend’ which opens with a sample from Supertramps monster hit ‘Breakfast In America’ once again all played and sung live, the immortal words ‘Take a look at my girlfriend, She’s the only one I’ve got, Not much of a girlfriend, Never seem to get a lot’ are repeated as a chorus throughout and soon everyone was singing along. Suddenly something happened that the crowd weren’t expecting Patrick Stump from Fall Out Boy came out onto the stage and sang along to the chorus with Disashi. He may have only been on the stage for less than a minute but it was enough to make the crowd go wild and certainly got them all pumped up ready for the rest of the show.

For the final track from GCH tonight we see Travis taking to the pit rails to really get up close and personal with all his new fans as he delivers the whole track from here. He moves up and down the whole length of the pit to make sure he can get to see as many people as possible, and the crowd obviously appreciate this unusually personal gesture.

Many people looked slightly bemused when a hip hop band took to the stage less than 40 minutes earlier, but it is plain to see that nearly everyone in that room had been won over by their unique style, quirky lyrics and friendly interaction with tonight’s crowd.

The chant from the crowd is ‘Fall Out Boy, Fall Out Boy’ and the stage is suddenly plunged into total darkness and there is a deafening cheer from the fans and the ‘Fall Out Boy’ chant gets louder and louder and suddenly they appear on stage and the eager crowd explode into an ear shattering roar, their idols are finally here and ready to rock. They blast straight into their first track without a word and the crowd are singing along to every word and at times it is hard to actually hear the band over the voices of the fans. After a few words of introduction they go straight into their second track which is delivered in the same gutsy way, with all the band members throwing themselves around on stage and hardly staying still for a second.

By the time we hit track 3, the bands new single, ‘Sugar we’re goin’ down’ you can feel the floor moving due to the shear vibrations caused when you have 1,350 pairs of feet bouncing up and down at the same time. People are being pulled out of the crowd all around, many without shoes, some virtually passing out and many just with a huge grin on their face as they had got close to their favourite band, the atmosphere in here tonight really is electric.

Pete Wentz asks the crowd to take a step back as people are being crushed at the front, but it’s very hard for this to have any effect as there really is no room in front of the stage due to all the fans pushing their way forward at every opportunity, the security guys really work hard tonight though and keep all the young people hydrated with an endless supply of bottled water being passed out from the front.

Fall Out Boy continue to please the crowd by playing all their favourite tracks such as ‘Homesick at space camp’ ‘Nobody puts baby in a corner’ and ‘Grand theft autumn/Where is your boy’

There is lots of interaction between the band and the fans with both Pete and Patrick talking to them in between tracks, they ask them to smile and they do, they ask them to jump, and they do, they ask them to scream and they do, the fans really do idolise these young men and you can’t help but admire them for sheer effort. They bounce around the stage continually and jump on and off the speakers, narrowly missing each other as they thrash around and roll around on the floor while still managing to play their guitars. One funny moment happened when Pete said “ We love the UK and have learnt some really funny new words like ‘Safe’ and my favourite ‘Dogs balls’” they were giggling in a very schoolboy way, almost like when a 5 year old learns his first swear word. He checks to make sure that everyone on the balcony is ok and enjoying the show before they carry on playing the rest of the set.

Patrick asks “Where are the boys in the mosh pit?” and hands emerge from the crowd, “Good to see you” he continues, before they launch into the strangely titled ‘I slept with someone from Fall Out Boy, and all I got was this stupid song written’. Once the track is finished Pete asks “Are you ready to dance? Come on Nottingham, Are you ready to dance?” The crowd cheer and scream back that they are indeed ready and the band play ‘Dance, Dance’ . Part way through the song they are joined on stage by a member of their crew who proceeds to have a ‘Bez’ moment (ask your parents kids!) where he is contorting his body and trying to do some sort of strange routine at the front of the stage, this is hilarious to say the least Here we have a man in cropped trousers, a body warmer, long hair and baseball cap doing a bad impression of a lap dancer, all I can say to him is ‘Please don’t give up the day job’.

After this the band leave the stage and once again the chant of ‘Fall Out Boy’ is resumed, the ‘dancing’ crew member returns to the stage and asks “ Nottingham are you having a good time? It’s hot in here. Who wants to see more Fall Out Boy?” the crowd cheer their response before he continues “ I know you can do better than that, who wants to see more fuckin’ Fall Out Boy?” this time the crowd scream even louder “ Ok I want you to do one more thing, everyone put your hands in the air and repeat after me, Mother Fuckin’ FOB” the room chants back to him and the band arrive back on stage and go straight into another track.

Pete decides to throw some guitar picks out into the crowd and states that he would love to have enough to give one to each person in the room. They then go into their penultimate song ‘Of all the gin joints in all the world’ the crowd sing along and when it gets to the chorus the band stop playing and allow the fans to sing it all for them. Once they have finished Pete says “ Ok guys this is our last song, hopefully we will see you all again. We didn’t come all the way over here to be your second favourite band and we didn’t come over to give you an alright show. We came over to give you the best fucking show and we wanna be in your girlfriends myspace top 8” (www.myspace.com/falloutboy)

They finish tonight’ show with ‘Saturday’ and the fans are left exhausted, elated and many shoeless and all with a huge grin on their sweaty faces. Fall Out Boy have exploded onto the UK scene so quickly and really are the hottest band of the moment to most teenagers and young adults. They have plenty more to give and from what we have witnessed tonight they are definitely going to be around for many years to come.