Fall Out Boy burst out of Chicagoland in the early 2000s, with their 2003 debut full-length “Take This to Your Grave” establishing them as a smart, hooky pop-punk band with knotty, knowing lyrics. Over their next three albums, they leaned into their collective musical prowess in exciting ways, incorporating elements of R&B and hip-hop while amping up their sonics to arena-sized proportions; the pogo-ready “Thnks fr th Mmrs” and the anthemic “Sugar, We’re Goin Down” subsequently became some of the decade’s biggest pop-rock songs. After 2008′s ambitious “Folie a Deux,” the band took a hiatus and roared back in 2013. Their most recent album “So Much (for) Stardust,” which came out in March, is perhaps their strongest post-hiatus release, with the band sounding invigorated even as bassist-lyricist Pete Wentz’s poetry muses on aging and love. “It was supposed to be this sad little record,” Wentz said at one point during the band’s set on Wednesday at Fenway Park, “but you made it this sad big record.”
But as Wednesday’s show proved, even those songs that Fall Out Boy played while touring basements and VFW halls have the capacity to be “big records.” The band whirled through its two-decade evolution on Wednesday with gusto, with jittery cuts like the “Grave” track “Dead on Arrival” and newer, more expansive offerings like the cliff-dwelling “Heaven, Iowa” alongside the highlight-reel soundtrack “My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark (Light ‘Em Up).” There were a couple of nods to the venue as well; the 2007 romp “Bang the Doldrums” was introduced by the thundering opening of Dropkick Murphys’ “I’m Shipping Up to Boston,” while lead singer Patrick Stump’s mid-set turn on the piano included a take on the Red Sox’s late-game staple “Sweet Caroline.” Stadium-worthy theatrics were also on display; the copious pyro included Wentz’s bass doubling as a flamethrower at the show’s outset, and later, he played the spiky bassline for “Dance, Dance” while atop the Green Monster.
One delightfully gutsy feature of Fall Out Boy’s current tour is how they’ve drawn on their long history to throw curveballs at the audience; midway through the show, Stump sits down at the piano for some solo tracks, while the later “Magic 8 Ball” section uses a projection of the fortune-divining toy from the ‘80s to pluck out lesser-played songs from the band’s catalog. (Wentz made a self-deprecating crack about it being a ploy to “get this old band to play a different setlist,” which, while technically true, doesn’t lessen the serendipity it offers.) Stump’s medley began with “w.a.m.s.,” a “Folie” cut that the band had never played in concert before; while on record it’s claustrophobic in a way that befits its apprehensive lyrics, its solo rendition was elegiac and lovely. The Magic 8 Ball, meanwhile, helped conjure the careening “XO” and the sparkling “G.I.N.A.S.F.S.,” which, in the context of Wednesday night’s set, made Fall Out Boy’s journey from DIY venues to stadiums feel absolutely natural.
FALL OUT BOY: SO MUCH FOR (TOUR)DUST
With Bring Me the Horizon, Four Year Strong, and Royal and the Serpent. At Fenway Park, Wednesday