FOB! Happy 21st, Emma, still...?

November 08, 2015

FOB! Happy 21st, Emma, still...?

I have been desperate to see Fall Out Boy live ever since I was about 13. My friends and one of my sisters have seen them live and for reasons which I can't remember, my parents didn't allow me to go and it's an understatement to say I was gutted.

Although I still obsessively listen to various bands, I have now thankfully grown out of the teenie era of obsessively stalking the band and it's members on social media. Needless to say, I found out about the tour on Twitter and by the time I had found out, a large majority of tickets had gone. Thankfully my sister said she didn't want to stand for the gig so we ended up getting the only tickets left which were actually seated. I say 'we ended up getting tickets'- it was actually my parents who paid as part of my 21st birthday present. As my birthday was in June and the gig wasn't until October, it was definitely a dragged out birthday!

On the evening of the gig, I met my sister at Leeds station and we ambled through Leeds to track down the arena and once we'd established where we had to go, we found a Wetherspoons for tea. It had been a while since I'd seen my sister so it was nice just to have a chat and catch up together.

When we arrived back at the arena it was a familiar sight- parents with teenage children, everyone getting very excited, masses of FOB t-shirts, multicoloured hair with swooping side fringes and a sea of black jeans and converse. Instantly, my teenie, myspace self jumped with joy, while the "mature" 21 year old women simply tutted.

We ended up sitting in the third tier of seats at the arena which was odd as we seemed very high up and I was slightly worried we wouldn't be able to see a great deal. In hindsight I think it would have been better if we had got tickets for the seats in the first tier but as I said previously, we didn't have much choice.

There were a couple of support acts which had started even before we had arrived and by the time we were seated, the second act was just finishing their set. One of the more surreal events of the entire night was seeing Professor Green. Both me and Claire can definitively state that we have never shown any interest in seeing 'Pro Green' live, let alone listen to his music; music of which is a different genre to that of FOB... Needless to say after the occasional beckons to get the crowd to jump and throw their hands in the air, myself and Claire and everyone else in the arena only knew the words to his final song- 'That one with Emeli Sande'.

As soon as Fall Out Boy came onto the stage (after their fucking weird introduction!) everyone jumped up from the seats. I have to be honest with you here, I'm writing this blog on the 4th Novemeber, a month after the gig, therefore as much as I'd like to be able to tell you the set list I'm afraid I didn't take note and my memory is rubbish! I can assure you one thing though, THEY WERE AMAAAZING!! The only complaint I have is that I wish the arena would have utilised the big screens better; although we could see everything, it was definitely better when they had the band members being filmed and projected onto the screens. They seemed to either have their own music type videos on behind them or they'd focus on the crowd, which in all honesty, sorry teenage girls on the front row but I do not care about you.

The set lasted about 2 hours and included songs from Take This To Your Grave right up to their new album, American Beauty/American Psycho. I think we lost our voices after roughly the 2nd song; we got over excited a little too soon..

If there are any doubts you have about 1. Seeing FOB live, DON'T HAVE ANY DOUBTS.. They are incredible or 2. Going to the arena, it's definitely better than I thought even if you're right up in the skies in the 3rd tier of seats.

Thank you to Fall Out Boy for giving me an amazing night (behave yourself..), thank you to the Leeds First Direct Arena for putting on the show and finally, thank you to my lovely sister, Claire, whom without, I would not have gone to the gig.

My teenage self is extremely happy right now!