Boys Like Girls celebrated two major album milestones this week when The Soundtrack of Your Life Tour visited Tempe’s Marquee Theatre. Their Boys Like Girls and Love Drunk albums marked 20 and 17 year anniversaries respectively and fans packed the room to sing along to songs that did quite literally soundtrack their lives.
Nobody likes the opening band- except in Arizona. The cheeky I Don’t Know How But They Found Me reference was written on signs held aloft in the front row, drawing laughs from Arrows in Action as they took the stage to start the show. Fans were ready to go, singing along to every song and cheering with delight when the band tossed in a verse from High School Musical’s “Breaking Free”. The room stomped and clapped in unison to Head in the Clouds and gave the band a proper opening welcome as they got warmed up for the rest of the night.
iDKHOW was up next, with singer Dallon Weekes whipping the audience into a frenzy with his onstage antics. From “Leave Me Alone” to “Choke” to “Razzmatazz”, the fans knew every word and threw them back at the band with a smile. Weekes and company were clearly thrilled to be there and they rewarded a grateful crowd with guitar picks and setlists at the end of a rousing performance.
Boys Like Girls built up the anticipation for their set by lining the stage with TV sets all playing clips from a bygone era of the scene. As the nostalgia reached a fever pitch, the band emerged into blinding spotlights right into the full playthrough of Love Drunk. Armed with a tambourine and his signature snarl, Martin Johnson gave the audience everything they asked for, as they jumped to “She’s Got a Boyfriend Now” and “Contagious”. The band also expressed genuine gratitude to the fans for keeping them onstage for over 20 years, taking nothing for granted when their devotees clamored for another anniversary tour around such staple albums.
The album rotation continued with a full play of their self-titled album and the phones went into the sky for “The Great Escape” and “Five Minutes to Midnight”. A few brazen fans even dared to crowd surf throughout the show as the band looked on and encouraged some slightly rowdy behavior to really keep the set moving. While BLG excels at their anthemic songs, the acoustic guitar came out a few times for “Thunder” and “Two is Better Than One”, allowing the sentimentality to really wash over the room. After the final notes of “Holiday” marked the end of the album, the band once again launched into a mashup of “The Great Escape” and “Love Drunk” to send the crowd home on a high note- and getting to celebrate both iconic albums certainly made for an unforgettable show.
