KEVIN TAN

alltherage@thestar.com.my

There is always an anticipation when a band, after a long hiatus, re-groups and goes on tour. Would they still sound the same? Is their new music any good? Do the members still share the same chemistry as when they first started?

For those who were asking similar questions when news broke that Fall Out Boy, after a four year break, is back and ready to tour, needn’t worry because judging from how the boys rocked the crowd at Fort Canning Park in Singapore last week, it’s almost as if the band never left the music scene.

During the hiatus, Fall Out Boy frontman Patrick Stump and bassist Pete Wentz pursued their solo careers respectively and guitarist Joe Trohman and drummer Andy Hurley also formed a side project band called The Damned Things.

Fall Out Boy stopped by the island mid last week as part of the band’s tour to promote its fifth and latest studio album Save Rock And Roll. The release of the album took its fans by surprise as none of the members made any indication that they’re working on new materials.

“Save Rock And Roll is music we made for ourselves,” said Wentz during an interview before the scheduled concert. “We didn’t really know how people would react to our new music, but we weren’t too concerned about that.”

The band released The Phoenix, the first single off the album in March to a mixed reaction as the music sounds nothing like anything Fall Out Boy had previously produced.

“It always had to be about new music, that’s what brought us back together. Even our manager wasn’t going to tell us get back together. He was like, ‘when you guys are ready to do this again, then do it’.”

Wentz said that the collective differences between the band members had helped create the materials for Save Rock And Roll. Although their respective solo projects didn’t directly influence their music as Fall Out Boy, they definitely made the collaboration easier as they had the experience of working with different people while pursuing their individual projects.

The audience at Fort Canning Park were lucky as they got to listen to the band’s latest offerings although not everyone were excited about the new Fall Out Boy music.

“I don’t mind that. I don’t mind people listening to music and saying ‘that’s not for me’. That’s totally cool and you should like what you like and it’s cool to try new things out and give it a shot.

“The thing that’s really hard is when people say ‘why don’t you make a record like that?’. I mean, we’re not those guys. It would be fake and we would be just like a karaoke band. It wouldn’t be real feelings and I hope our fans won’t want that out of us.”

However the band didn’t fail to impress the fans who truly love everything Fall Out Boy had started with – all the way from their very first album Take This To Your Grave.

The band entertained the crowd of about 4,000 with its hits like Thriller, A Little Less Sixteen Candles A Little More Touch Me, This Ain’t A Scene It’s An Arms Race, Sugar We’re Going Down and Dance Dance.

The crowd was just as thrilled when the band rocked out their new album, chanting the catchy lines from songs like The Phoenix and My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light ‘Em Up).

During the concert, Wentz addressed the crowd to explain the band’s long hiatus while the rest of the band took a quick break.

The fans, who were obviously unhappy with the band’s four-year disappearance from the music scene, booed at the explanation although Wentz tried to convince them that it was for the best.

“The band has come a long way since we started, and it was important for us to take a break, because it was good for us. It was for the best, and we thank you for supporting Fall Out Boy, it means a lot to us,” he said.

The boys got the crowd going again when they treated the audience to Save Rock And Roll (with Stump on the piano), Thnks fr th Mmrs, Saturday and even paid homage to the King Of Pop with Beat It.

“Last time, we gave everything we had to Fall Out Boy, and it was too much. At some point you have to be able to walk away, or else you’ll just burn out. And I think that’s a little bit hard for fans to understand, but we need to do that in order to be healthy and keep doing the band.

“I know that all of our fans are great people that do want the band, and that’s the reason we do the band in the first place. Ideally, I think that our fans understand that,” said Wentz.