Time for another concert review as I was to another concert on Monday – and finally find the time to say a few words. Once again we went to Oberhausen and this time we went to an arena show – of a band I’ve seen live before. So even though I haven’t been listening to Fall Out Boy that much lately, I had an idea of what I could expect when I bought the tickets the day they went on sale. But let’s start at the beginning, right?
And in my case, the beginning was not quite at the start. Due to work-related reasons, we left quite late at home and then quickly went out for dinner. The ticket said the concert would begin at 8 pm, the e-mail I had received in advance said the concert would begin at 8 pm and I hadn’t read anything on social media that stated anything else. We arrived at the venue at a few minutes past 7:30 pm, thinking we were still on time – and were surprised when Pvris hit the stage around 7:45 pm.
Their set was great, their energy was great and as someone who had never heard a single song of them before I can say that I had a really good time. I liked the singer’s vocals and overall it was just a really good performance. Not sure if I would go see one of their headline shows, but I’d definitely go see them again if they played at a festival – and I would definitely not mind seeing them another time as a support. What surprised us was that they played for 45 minutes because as far as we knew, there were two supports planned for this concert and normally the first act got a 30 minutes slot only.
It slowly dawned on us when Fall Out Boy’s We didn’t start the fire started playing before the show that something was off – and the moment the FOB-part of the show began, we finally knew that the concert had started earlier than communicated and that we had simply missed nothing, nowhere. To be honest, I was a little pissed about that after the show because we couldn’t find any information about the early start anywhere. As I have mentioned before, there was an e-mail from Eventim on Friday before the concert that included info from the organiser Live Nation. Said e-mail gave 8 pm as starting time. There was no info on any of the socials of the bands that played there and when we tried to look it up on the venue’s website after the show, their calendar had already moved on to the next day and it was impossible to go back in time. And that kinda sucks. I don’t know nothing, nowhere. I can’t judge if it would’ve been my taste. But I at least like to give the support a chance.
Thankfully, Fall Out Boy were great. But the show was not sold out and especially the infield was half empty. We were in the infield and made use of it because there was enough space to dance and just have a good time. But there also wasn’t much crowd activity. There might’ve been one crowd surfer and I’ve heard from someone on Instagram that there were a few small circle pits, but as someone whose first mosh pit experience at a „larger than club“ concert was at a Fall Out Boy show (in 2009), I kinda missed the pit. Then again, it was Monday evening, I was tired from work and enjoyed the concert on my own, more or less.
The set was a great mix from almost all of their albums – it was only after the show when I looked up the setlist that I noticed that they hadn’t played a single song from Mania. But I personally didn’t mind – those were not the songs I missed, I was rather sad that I didn’t get to hear I don’t care or Immortals (and even though I personally would’ve loved to hear those songs, I didn’t necessarily miss them). Other than that, they had a great selection of songs. And it really teleported me back into my teenage days when they played songs like A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Touch Me or Sugar, We’re Going Down. Those songs remind me of my Myspace era – and how many bands I discovered through Myspace before it went down đ (Fall Out Boy weren’t a Myspace discovery though – I became a fan when This Ain’t A Scene, It’s A Goddamn Arms Race and Thnks Fr Th Mmrs came out and I saw the music videos on MTV Plus).
And I looooved their stage design. It was truly something special and I really liked the fact that a large part of it was actually built physically instead of using video screens (looking at my beloved Electric Callboy). I was impressed about the stage design of Amon Amarth, which was epic, but Fall Out Boy’s layout was beautiful and magical and you couldn’t stop discovering new details you hadn’t spotted before.
There wasn’t that much interaction between band and crowd. They didn’t talk much and to be brutally honest when they did, I quite often didn’t understand everything (not sure if that was because of the sound, their accents or just me being exhausted…). But there was this cute little anecdote from Patrick Stump about his German skills that at least made me chuckle.
All in all, I have to say that I didn’t come with very high expectations. I hadn’t listened much to So much for Stardust and I had liked Mania, but my big Fall Out Boy phase had somehow been over. So I didn’t know what to expect – although I knew that their live shows are good. Also it was a Monday evening, I was tired from a long day at work and I thought that maybe it would be one of those concerts where you just chill and have a good time as best as you can (that’s what I Prevail was for me when I saw them twice in March).
I enjoyed the concert A LOT more than I expected and I hope I can see them again soon. Like … guys, don’t wait for too long, next time I wanna drag along my mum again, who’s an even bigger FOB fan.
Next up are three shows of my Swedish love Self Deception and I don’t think I’ll write separate posts about each of those shows.