As someone that has seen Fall Out Boy many times over the last decade, the band still continues to surprise. Tracks like “Headfirst Slide into Cooperstown on A Bad Bet” or “Bang The Doldrum” have become setlist staples. What is interesting, though, is songs like the aforementioned two would have been unimaginable three years ago. So Much for 2ourdust was the second leg of their So Much (For) Stardust Tour, and this era of the band has easily shaped the best Fall Out Boy show you can see.
Patrick said in our interview that he wanted to do something special; “we expected a unique Magic 8 Ball and maybe a few deep cuts, but what we got was so much more.” I firmly believe this is the best show on all of Tour-dust (1 and 2). Replacing “Sixteen Candles” with “XO” and having the Take This to Your Grave section feature “Tell That Mic” felt like we got a setlist for the fans. Tour-dust’s first leg last year was a celebration of every album cycle of the band. It was a showcase of the entirety of Fall Out Boy. Tour-dust’s second leg took that style and dove into the nitty gritty of it with tracks that hardcore fans would know and love. Rather than simply playing a deep cut during the Magic 8 Ball portion, fans could hear album B-sides throughout the whole setlist.
I was also surprised how seamless everything flowed. The admitted odd ball of the Fall Out Boy career is M A N I A. The band didn’t play any tracks off that record and, maybe because of that, the concert felt compact. Every song flowed into the next one. Even the onstage banter felt perfectly placed. For a band that’s thrived on reinventing the wheel (no pun intended), it’s amazing that 20 years into their career they are still able to make their concerts feel brand new. The best is never behind Fall Out Boy – it’s always ahead.
The band brought out Daisy Grenade to perform “Just One Yesterday.” For fans who don’t know and weren’t present this night at Madison Square Garden, they are a fun, up-and-coming punk band that is already making waves. Seeing them perform with Fall Out Boy in front of 20,000 people at a sold-out Garden was a delight. They work so hard – those two ladies really earned that moment.
However, the ultimate shock of the night came from the second Magic 8 Ball song. In our last review of FOB live, we mentioned the only negative was Fall Out Boy doing covers. My exact quote was, “The band was pulling out such incredible deep cuts that having them play a cover felt like a screeching halt of momentum.” While I stand by that review, what Fall Out Boy did on March 22 increased the momentum by 1,000% as they brought out William Beckett from The Academy Is.. to perform their hit song “Slow Down.” Anyone even remotely connected to the emo scene understands and appreciates the impact Beckett has had; the band is pivotal and the scene could not have expanded into the heights it did without them. Seeing Fall Out Boy perform with a legend and play their beloved hit song felt close to a religious experience. It was an insane performance that shot the sold-out crowd’s energy into the stratosphere.
We had the chance to chat with Piper Sparrow, a dedicated fan who has been to 15 Fall Out Boy shows. “There is no venue like Madison Square Garden,” she told us. “People flew from all over the world to go to that show and I met a lot of them there. Something about the intersection of this historic tour and this historic venue just felt like lightning.”
At every stop of this tour, during the song “Fake Out,” fans may have noticed the arena glowing beautiful shades of colors. This is thanks to the Stardust Project. They get there early at every show to pass out paper used to illuminate the stadium. Fans can place their cell phone lights behind said papers to illuminate it. Piper is also a captain in the Stardust Project and was able to shed some light on the amazing spectacle. “Every single show, first leg and second leg, we have one to two people leading the date, and then a variety of people helping with that date to print out the cut outs, cut the cut outs, make sure all sections are covered. I did not date-lead New York, but I did date lead both Jacksonville, Florida, and Des Moines, Iowa. Originally, it was just this little pink seashell that you would cut out and hold up. Since then, we’ve gotten a second design. You might have also seen eight balls! We have a little discord server that we’re all on. Every date has its own channel on the server and there are one or two people whose job it is to contact the venue, get permission, coordinate everything, make sure they know who is sitting where, how many cut outs they’re doing, and then arrange everything day of.” For something that looks so seamless, it’s amazing to see the hard work and passion that goes into it… all because fans are thankful for the band and want to give back.
We also caught up with another fan who wrote their thesis (!) on Tour-dust and the Magic Eight Ball specifically: Alexis Costa. “In December I completed about a 40-page paper of research study called The Magic Eight Ball Never Lies: A study in Fall Out Boy surprise songs. I interviewed Scarlet Estelle from the Sugar We’re Going In podcast. That was really interesting. I was a small child when Fall Out Boy was first starting and there were a lot of gaps there because I don’t have experiences seeing them prior to 2014. It was really to get Scarlet’s perspective on their 2007 tour that she talked about a lot. When I was seeing them in high school, I remember their setlists were so strict. It was such a rigid, regimented thing. Seeing that progression of what the setlist was to what the setlist become [to] now the setlist being able to be anything… that’s a very beautiful and wonderful thing, but also a heartbreaking tragic thing because you wake up in the morning and you check Twitter [X], ‘Oh my gosh! The Magic Eight Ball last night was ‘this.’ I really wanted it!’ It’s also really cool because I can say I was there for the live debut of ‘Pavlove!’”
My immediate follow up question was, “Since you have written your thesis on the Magic Eight Ball, can you predict them?” Alexis’ response was, “I have a whole spreadsheet that I have been keeping up to date in an attempt to find a pattern, and there is none. There is no pattern that I’m aware of. Sometimes I see people on Twitter guessing right. I don’t think there is a pattern to it and that’s what’s so exciting about it.”
Another fan we had the privilege of getting their thoughts on 2ourdust was Karina Palacios. “If you were to tell 16-year-old me that they were going to play throwbacks that I wouldn’t have imagined, it would have melted my brain, especially accurate ‘Get Busy’ where they do the back and forth- crazy!” We also talked about the insane set design on this tour. She said, “I loved the fact they included the snail and the bunny but I was shocked to see how much pyrotechnics were in this show. Even in the beginning, if you were seated in the first couple rows you felt the heat from those pyrotechnics. They were not pulling back. I personally liked the screens that the eight ball would change to depending on the theme/song. The quirky funny bits were fun to me, very much Fall Out Boy.”
Having such a varied setlist that expands even further upon the first tour is the best thing Fall Out Boy could have done. Every fan we spoke to said in the past they would go to 1 tour date a year roughly. If they missed a show, they wouldn’t sweat it. The setlist used to be very stationary. With everything that’s happened in the last year the band has taken even their most hardcore fans and given them more to love. Fans are traveling to see every date of the tour. Something that would have been much rarer 2 years ago. Fall Out Boy (on their 8th album in) is still reaching new heights.
