The San Francisco Bay Area is abuzz with activity ahead of Super Sunday, with a raft of fan experiences and concert events planned for the lead-up to the Big Game. And while much of the Thursday night’s attention seemed to be drawn to Benson Boone’s return to San Francisco, there was plenty of action less than a mile up the road at The Regency Ballroom where Fall Out Boy was set to perform an incredibly intimate (and exclusive) show thanks to Wells Fargo’s ongoing Autograph Card concert series and a whole lot of luck in the overwhelmed ticket queue.
With a multi-platinum artist playing such a tiny venue (~1,300 capacity), it was no surprise that the fans lined up early and packed the general admission floor from the front to the back … more than happy to pass the hours ahead of the band’s 8:30 scheduled set time by singing along to emo classics courtesy of a DJ. The DJ’s plug got pulled around 8:15, and the energy in the room quickly peaked as the crew made quick work of the sparse stage before the band finally took to the stage with a blast from the strobe lights and launched into “Love From the Other Side.”
And so began a 90-minute pummeling of the classics, the first half of which the band barely let up to say a few words as they let the music do the talking. Interspersed with a handful of crowd surfers, the crowd was more than content to sing along, emitting an audible squeal whenever Patrick Stump or Pete Wentz had a few words to say. Midway through the set, a grand piano emerged from the side stage, giving Stump a chance to sit down after a particularly ferocious performance of “Thnks fr theMmrs” and ask the crowd for help on “The Last of the Real Ones,” to which they happily obliged.
With the bare-bones stage setup, the band made full use of a video screen at the rear of the stage and pretty much every piece of lighting equipment in the venue to give the show a massive vibe in spite of the venue’s size. And of course, no Fall Out Boy show would be complete without Wentz taking setlist advice from the Magic 8 Ball, which gave the band the green light to play, “a Bay Area thrash metal song that we learned in the car on the way over here?” Apparently, the Magic 8 Ball is not all-knowing, and Stump thankfully cut the song short before explaining to Wentz that Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” is indeed not a thrash metal song. Relenting, Wentz gave the Magic 8 Ball a second chance, which the band promptly ignored, busting out “Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet” rather than a “thrash metal song that we actually rehearsed.”
With the clock counting down, the band opted not to leave the stage to fish for the inevitable encore and rather launched right into the 1-2 punch of a set closer with “Centuries” and “Saturday,” the later of which found Wentz handing his bass off to a crew member while he hopped onto the barricade to give out high fives to the front rows.
