By Michael Harkin
“Why’d they have to do the concert on this day, when they knew it’d be rainin’?” You posed a good question, Mr. Passerby. I arrived at Great American Music Hall at 11:45 a.m. on this damp, overcast Sunday morning, Dec. 22, and 150 people were already lined up around the corner from the club. Mostly teenage girls around, but lots of parents toted umbrellas and blankets – what good sports! – knowing full well that they’d be out there another seven hours with their kids before doors.
My neighbors in line had variously traveled from Stockton, Mountain View, and San Jose, willing to pay far more than the $20 door price to see Fall Out Boy that night. Their health ‘neath those Decaydance hoodies wasn’t quite as important as the close proximity the venue would afford them.
I can’t readily provide a sufficient rationale for standing out in the rain this long, especially when the band in question is the embodiment of commercial rock’s absurdity – they headlined the Honda Civic Tour last year, for heaven’s sake – and regularly employ such overwrought, cumbersome song titles as “I’m Like a Lawyer with the Way I’m Always Trying to Get You Off (Me and You).” That said, I like ’em anyway – hard to say why. And this beats paying 60 bucks to see them with some terrible bands at the HP Pavilion next summer, right?