Fall Out Boy Concert

My twin daughters turn 14 near the end of this month, so last night I took them, along with one of their friends, to the Fall Out Boy concert at the Gwinnett Arena for a birthday celebration.

Opening acts were the Plain White T's and rap group Gym Class Heroes (they're the ones who have the song called Cupid's Chokehold, that samples Supertramp's Breakfast in America. Original and still best, in my opinion.

I had never been to the Gwinnett Arena before. They were very efficient and it's a nice place. Clean bathrooms. I should know, I was in them twice LOL....I would definitely go to the Gwinnett Arena for a concert again.

I think the last time I went to a rock concert was in about 1986...it was Sting, in Savannah GA...and I think it was the Dream of the Blue Turtles tour.

A lot has changed since then...the security level first of all - the Fall Out Boy concert involved metal detector wand and bag searches. No chain jewelry, no chains connected to your key rings, no large purses, no food, and of course - no drugs, no alcohol, no guns.

As I had my bag checked, one of the security guys asked me, "how did you end up here? Did you lose a bet or something?!?"

Another thing that has changed is nobody waves their lighter in the air anymore - they wave their cell phones. It's a lot safer than the lighters and can look just as cool, but that was a little strange to see.

FOB (Fall Out Boy) also invited people to post a text message to them to be 'crawled' across the two sidescreens. The messages ranged from the typical "FOB Pete Wentz will you marry me?" to "Kristal I don't love you David" (some punctuation would be helpful in some of the messages!) One message that had everyone laughing was "Meredith, I love you. Meet me under the stage in 10 minutes. j"

As I watched the Plain White T's and Gym Class Heroes, I thought to myself how the stage production hasn't really changed that much. I really thought it would have advanced a LOT since my last concert...but it seemed not very advanced or different.

But when Fall Out Boy came out, it was a whole different thing. Torches in the back of the stage blasted so fast and tall that we could feel the heat from it all the way in our seats in the mid-level, section 119. They shot off gunpowder...and each song had lighting in different colors. One time in rainbow colors that went over the crowd at ground level. I saw at least 4 people get carried off from being overcome in the crowd down there. Three of those people had trouble right after the crush of excitement when Fall Out Boy came on the stage.

I looked over at my daughters and their friend, and they looked just like the films you've seen of the Beatles when they first came to America and the girls went wild. They were all screaming their heads off at a high pitch and my daughter was pulling at her hair on each side. No kidding, it looked like Beatlemania!

If you are over 40 like me, or sensitive to noise, I recommend you take some earplugs though...it was all very loud! But in the end, it was the kids who wanted to leave early!

A major negative of the concert from a mom's point of view is, all of the band front men liked to use the "F-word" a lot. After it was used in the most insignificant way possible for the 20 thousandth time, I realized that they were just doing that because it shocks the parents and if it shocks the parents, the kids really love it. So I stopped being shocked and just smirked at how stupid that was. I still didn't like it though.

Oh yes, and my daughter just came in here and I told her I was blogging about the Fall Out Boy concert, and it is of earth shattering importance to her that I tell y'all that Pete Wentz's ankle is broken. Ok so there I told you.