FALL OUT BOY, BRING ME THE HORIZON DOMINATE SOLD OUT BMO STADIUM IN LA
WORDS BY SEAN FORTIER. PHOTOS BY NIKKI NEUMANN.
You can’t count the grains of sand in an hourglass. You can try, taking stock as they fall. But with all the motion and refracted light - you lose track quickly. You only really notice how much time has passed from on high. The big picture. You glance away and when you look back, the sand is much higher.
As I stepped into BMO stadium the other night ( Sunday, July 2nd), I was smacked in the face by that very phenomenon. I’ve been to my share of stadium shows - echoey, tinny affairs for the most part (suffered through for the chance to snag a cheap ticket to this legend or that-). But as I waited in line and heard (and felt) Royal & The Serpent’s opening guitar riff resounding out in crystalline clarity, I knew I was in for a new experience.
BMO feels and sounds like a proper concert venue. It oozes modernity. Phase issues? Sound reflections? Technical wizardry. I took my first steps into a stadium that feels designed as much for music as for sport, and with her bombastic sound, Ryan Santiago and Royal & the Serpent were a perfect welcome for me. Whether they were dancing in the unset sun, rocking out to a Smells Like Teen Spirit cover, or bringing Demi Lovato up to perform EAT ME, they took up every inch of the stage.
New Found Glory was next. And here I felt the sand level growing higher once again. I remember my cousin Kevin playing me “Hit or Miss” at some family function. It was the first CD I ever asked for, and it became the soundtrack to more than a few of my pre-teen adventures. And I was finally going to see them. They were great, turning out a quick succession of hits, Jordan Pundik’s voice hitting all those same notes. And then “Hit or Miss”, I jumped around and sang every word - Nikki Neumann coming up from the photo pit just in time to join in.
Guitarist Chad Gilbert, in his first show back after chemotherapy, was all vibrance and inspiration. At times playing guitar from a lounge chair provided by Live Nation, and at others waxing eloquent on connection and lust for life.
And then the sun finally settled in for the night, just in time for the raucous Bring Me the Horizon to take the stage. BMTH are a rare breed, simultaneously of the past and present. They feel like a band that the rest of the world has caught up to, with a sound and energy that’s very much of the now. Oliver Sykes is a whirling dervish of a frontman and puts every trick to good use. At times dropping to his knees for a scream, sprinting across the stadium with a quarter of the crowd at others.
BMTH is a show. Lights perfectly choreographed to guitar riffs, screams, and climactic moments.
The end of the night brought with it a fully turned hourglass. For me at least. It felt like a bookend in my life. The first concert I ever attended was as a high schooler with much shorter hair and much blacker clothes. I remember Fall Out Boy coming out on stage wreathed in blazing stage lighting, Pete Wentz (also with much shorter hair), and Patrick Stump. From ‘Under the Cork Tree’. Now we’re all in a stadium. Time and change.
And change. I remember being underwhelmed by the vocals the first time I saw Fall Out Boy. And now Patrick Stump has one of the best live voices around. That’s what I love about this band. For all the pop sensibilities and magazine covers and fame, Fall Out Boy still feels like a group of guys in a scene grinding it out. They feel real. Where other bands rely on tricks and backing tracks and pageantry, Fall Out Boy focuses on the substance.
Stadium staying power. Any band that reaches Fall Out Boy’s level needs an alchemical concoction of brilliant, catchy songwriting, technical consistency, and showmanship. All of it was on display at BMO. From the first moment to the last. Whether cranking through the stadium hits like “Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down”, or meandering through a multitude of off-the-wall covers (ELO, Crazy Train, Don’t Stop Believing), Stump didn’t miss a note - adding impressive vocal runs seemingly on the fly.
The pyrotechnics, fireworks, and huge wolf head all contributed to the massive feel of it all. The crowd singalongs (“Dance, dance..-”), kept it all intimate and personal.
By the end of the night, I found myself reveling in the wonder of music and concerts. Here I was, almost 20 years later feeling so much of the same wonder. There’s a timelessness to music, a permanence. And as much as time can bold the changes, so can it reveal the empiric unkillable spirit within communal art. I was singing along with my childhood self. And I felt the hourglass smash to pieces on the BMO Stadium floor.