Fall Out Boy with The All-American Rejects, Hawthorne Heights, and From First to Last
April 4, 2006 – Los Angeles Sports Arena, Los Angeles, California

I was never a big fan of Fall Out Boy, but their performance at the Sports Arena was nothing short of spectacular.
The concert was at the home of the USC Trojans and the crowd was full of students sporting their red and yellow sweaters. Needless to say,  I wasn’t feeling the venue at all. As From First to Last started the show, I sat in my seat that seemed miles away from the stage and tried to enjoy the music. From First to Last is one of those unfortunate bands that don’t sound nearly as good live as they do on their CD, even if their CD isn’t that great to start with. I could see that I wasn’t the only one in the crowd of about 16,000 who couldn’t hear any instruments besides the obtrusive guitar or decipher anything the lead vocalist was spewing.
When Hawthorne Heights took the stage, the show completely turned around and become one of the most enjoyable collections of performances I have witnessed. All their songs were performed beautifully and powerfully, with the most memorable one being their famous “Ohio is for Lovers.”
The reason I went to a Fall Out Boy concert even though I don’t particularly like their music was because of a certain band known as The All-American Rejects. Although I was on the opposite side of the arena as the stage, I enjoyed The All-American Rejects’ performance just as much as I did when I saw them in a much smaller venue. They played most of their well-known songs, including “Dirty Little Secret,” “My Paper Heart,” and “Move Along.” The only negative aspect of their performance was the shortness of their set list. I thought that they would at least play a few more songs than FFTL and HH did, but, regrettably, they all played about the same number of songs.
After The All-American Rejects left the stage, I was ready to leave. Luckily, I chose to stay and gave Fall Out Boy a chance. Even though their music doesn’t appeal to me as much as that of other bands, I had a great time simply because they are great performers. They kept the audience extremely engaged by having us all do the wave, bringing someone named “Dirty” on stage to fall through and break two tables, and showing an e-mail on screen that they had received complaining that they cursed too much during their shows. After showing the e-mail, the bassist proceeded to deliver a sentence incorporating every existing curse word to a crowd of laughing and cheering fans. Before singing their hit “Sugar, We’re Going Down,” bassist Pete Wentz got the crowd excited by dedicating the song to Los Angeles in a speech that I could barely hear because of all the screaming. The show ended with “Dance, Dance” and “Saturday,” two songs that even non-fans such as myself could enjoy singing along to. To those who don’t consider themselves Fall Out Boy fans, a Fall Out Boy show can still be very, very satisfying. To the fans of Fall Out Boy, I’d say that their show would be absolutely breathtaking.

-Deborah Cho