At the Commodore Ballroom on Thursday, June 20

In 2005, when Fall Out Boy was on top of the world with its breakthrough album, From Under the Cork Tree, I was 15 years old. Naturally, most of my adolescent peers were enamoured of its hook-filled, emo-stained anthems—not to mention Pete Wentz’s pout, which launched a thousand sordid fan-fiction tales.

Although that bubblegum-pop-punk balloon has long since burst, Fall Out Boy has re-emerged from the goo for a reunion tour and new album, dubiously dubbed Save Rock and Roll. Vancouver welcomed it with open arms last night, when Fall Out Boy hit the stage of a sold-out Commodore Ballroom.

Gearing up to the tune of the guitar-chugging “Thriller”, all but one band member sported matching denim jackets with “Youngbloods” emblazoned on the back. Drummer Andy Hurley opted to show off his tattoos instead, while also displaying a militant prowess on the skins.

But as the quartet powered through new songs, like the syrupy “Alone Together”, and old hits, like the big-shiny-chorus “Sugar, We’re Goin Down”, bassist and frontman Pete Wentz garnered the most attention, alongside vocalist Patrick Stump. For the most part, lead guitarist Joe Trohman seemed content to shred dutifully on the sidelines.

Pleasing the fangirls with his sparkly skinny jeans, Wentz was bizarrely stoic and emotionless, hardly moving and not smiling once until the end of the show. It’s possible that no one has ever sung “La, la, la,” with such soulless, dead eyes.

Wentz even failed to crack a grin when a couple of fans in the front row attempted showering him with flower petals. Eventually the heart-eyed girls handed him a single long-stemmed rose. But as he thanked them for the gift, his eerily bored face was that of a man who doesn’t give a shit anymore. By the looks of it, Wentz is so over Fall Out Boy, sold-out shows be damned.

Still, the rainbow-haired audience lapped it up, boys and girls alike crowd-surfing and singing their swelling hearts out. A sweat-drenched Stump gave a passionate, fist-pumping performance, busting some swaggerful moves during “Dance, Dance”, and sending the crowd’s buzzing energy right back.

Wentz only seemed to liven up around the encore, when he embarked on a speech about the “war on our minds” and the power of punk rock to bring underdogs together.

“That’s what rock ’n’ roll is about,” he declared. “Being heroes for losers.” How the former Mr. Ashlee Simpson can still view himself and his band as “punk” or “underdogs” is baffling, but I guess the sentiment is nice.

Even so, the question remains: Are Wentz and company sincere, or are these sentiments the business-savvy, sugar-coated pills they feed to satiate their target fan base—namely, young and emotionally vulnerable “outcasts”? If Fall Out Boy’s largely rudimentary, repetitive repertoire is any indication, it very well could be the latter.

During the screamo-fanged finale “Saturday”, Wentz loosened up a little more to hoist himself into the crowd, where he finally seemed happy to mingle with his devotees. Apparently overwhelmed by teenage hormones, the fangirls ripped his shirt in half, fighting over it like hyenas when Wentz tossed the remains back into the fray.

Although Fall Out Boy is named after a superhero sidekick, rock ’n’ roll superheroes these guys are clearly not. But if their tear-streaked, guitar-injected pop is able to capture so many bleeding hearts, they could do more to earn the crazed devotion they have somehow inspired.