Music has the power to take people right back to a specific time, a specific place, a specific feeling. Even now, at 36 years old, I can listen to a song from when I was 13 and I’m there in a moment; the warmth of summer, the cozy comfort of lying in my childhood bed, sunlight streaming through the window. One song and I’m 14 again, walking to school on a dewy morning with my little green Discman skipping through a pair of cheap, tinny headphones or sitting in 7th grade math, watching heads turn as the room falls quiet and the blaring buzz of hidden headphones drew eyes like a neon sign pointing to the kid disregarding school rules.
On stage during Boys Like Girls’ Soundtrack of Your Life tour, lead singer Martin Johnson reflects on that same transporting power of music. Leading into “Thunder,” Johnson recalls sharing a run-down apartment with drummer John Keefe during the mid-2000s. They were young, newly independent, and thrilled to log onto AOL Instant Messenger in hopes that one particular screen name might be online. It’s an image that instantly transports many millennials back to their own coming-of-age stories. Nostalgia in its rawest, most magical form was the first draw of the Soundtrack of Your Life tour, but it’s the bond that Johnson, Keefe, Jamel Hawke and Gregory James share with their fans that really makes the performance one to remember.
The tour celebrated the 20th anniversary of the band’s self-titled debut album and the 17th anniversary of their sophomore album, Love Drunk. Both albums were performed in full, in track order—a 23-song set running just under 90 minutes before accounting for encore breaks or stage banter. It was an ambitious promise and one the boys delivered on effortlessly. The April 10th show at the Fillmore in Silver Spring played to a sold out crowd alive with an undeniable, unwavering, electric energy. For two hours it was the late 2000s again and we were all young, living in a bubble of time when life was simpler.
The tour celebrated the 20th anniversary of the band’s self-titled debut album and the 17th anniversary of their sophomore album, Love Drunk. Both albums were performed in full, in track order—a 23-song set running just under 90 minutes before accounting for encore breaks or stage banter. It was an ambitious promise and one the boys delivered on effortlessly. The April 10th show at the Fillmore in Silver Spring played to a sold out crowd alive with an undeniable, unwavering, electric energy. For two hours it was the late 2000s again and we were all young, living in a bubble of time when life was simpler.
The show opened with the social-media-famous up and comers, Arrows in Action, who proved to be one of the night’s biggest surprises. Their energetic set and hook-heavy songs fit naturally alongside Boys Like Girls, making them feel more like a perfect complement to the night than some generic opener. The second support, I Don’t Know How, But They Found Me – commonly stylized as IDKHow – were charismatic and engaging in their own right, but their more theatrical performance felt like a different tone from the pop-punk adjacent throughline in a way that took me out of the nostalgic tone of the evening. I was familiar with some of the band’s work before the show and I enjoyed their set, but nothing about their particular performance or place in the night intrigued me enough to pursue them further. On the other hand, Arrows In Action struck strong enough that I’ve since added them to my daily music rotation and will be seeing them twice more before the end of the year on their own headlining tour this fall.
As for the headlining set, Boys Like Girls has never failed to impress with their live performances. A brief misunderstanding surrounding my photo pass caused me to miss part of the set, and several vintage tube televisions incorporated into the stage design appeared to be experiencing technical issues. Even so, none of it distracted from the performance itself. The band’s love for the music, for the audience, and for each other was evident in every moment. Johnson’s frontman swagger and bravado made him a delight to watch on stage. Watching the band ruffle each other’s hair or kiss a cheek in the same motion as a playful punch to the shoulder—the kind of affection wrapped in Bostonian bravado—was as entertaining as it was heartwarming. Truly, though, the most enjoyable part of the evening was the sense of genuine mutual gratitude that made the show feel so much more intimate than a sold out venue crowd of roughly 2,000 people had any right to be. The best shows take audiences away from the real world. In the crowd, couples slow danced to “Two Is Better than One,” and fans at the barricade wiped away tears to emotional ballads “Holiday,” “Go,” and “Someone Like You.” Two decades later, Johnson’s lyrics still resonate deeply. Judging by the tears in the audience and the voices singing every word back to the stage, they’re a big part of why fans continue to return.
“Watching the band ruffle each other’s hair or kiss a cheek in the same motion as a playful punch to the shoulder—the kind of affection wrapped in Bostonian bravado—was as entertaining as it was heartwarming”
Johnson, in a mid-set speech to the crowd, acknowledged that it is the fans, those same ones in the crowd, many of whom showed up night after night on the tour, that keep them in business and keep food on their family tables. Too often, he observed, artists take their most loyal supporters for granted despite. The gratitude, however, was clearly mutual. Fans return because the music continues to give them something in return: a sense of belonging, words that carry them through difficult moments, or simply two carefree hours to feel young again.
The Soundtrack of Your Life Tour was a celebration not just of two albums, but of the relationship between a band and the fans who have carried those songs through two decades. That bond became permanent during the final tour stop in Seattle, where the band and roughly twenty members of the Thunder Club fan club commemorated the journey with matching “XX” tattoos. The celebration isn’t quite over. Though the tour itself concluded in May, two anniversary performances remain at the end of August—one at a festival in the band’s hometown of Boston and another, more intimate show in nearby Nantucket—bringing this chapter to a close. If the rest of the tour was any indication, they’ll be fitting finales to a celebration that resonated just as deeply with the audience as it did with the band.