Fall Out Boy perform My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark during American Idol finale

While we await Fall Out Boy's full live return on the Hella Mega Tour this summer, the band warmed up – quite literally – with a performance of My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light ’Em Up) at the American Idol finale.

The suitably fiery show saw Patrick Stump and co. joined by the Top 4 guys – Willie Spence, Chayce Beckham, Deshawn Goncalves and Hunter Metts – for a set that the programme called, "It’s fun, it’s energetic, it’s entertaining, it’s FIRE!" Yup, we're inclined to agree.

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Speaking to Kerrang! about My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light ’Em Up), how it came about and how it tied into Fall Out Boy's return from hiatus, Patrick revealed, "We didn’t necessarily know that we were going to do a comeback. We had this one song, but a whole record (laughs)? Internally, it was like, ‘Let’s get together and see if it works out when we do this thing.’ And it just started moving. Literally the day we posted it, we played a show and we did a video all at once, and up to that point, I wasn’t sure we were going to do anything else. But then it’s like, ‘Well, we’re already here. I guess we’ve got do it.’ It shares a title with a long-forgotten demo, but it has no other relation other than I remembered the line and I liked it, so I brought it back.”

"It represents our return after those years of not being in a band," added guitarist Joe Trohman. "I don’t think we assumed anything about that. Prior to us coming back, the music industry was a different beast. America, at least, was somewhat interested in bands and guitars, then we stopped doing Fall Out Boy, and when we came back guitars were not of interest anymore – especially on pop radio. So we had no idea whether people would still care about us. We wondered whether or not we would make any impact. But we did, and people were excited, plus we got this whole new, younger fanbase out of it. If you put a checkpoint in time in the history of this band, this song marks the beginning of Fall Out Boy 2.0.”

"It was a big surprise," continued Patrick. "I used to work at a used record store and that was fun because you get to witness everyone’s mistakes – the records people sell are the ones they don’t want to keep. So, I felt like I had a pretty good handle on how bands work. You get one shot and that’s kind of it. The idea that we were ever going to put that record out and it was going to be anywhere near as big as it was, I would have thought comical.”

Catch Fall Out Boy with Green Day and Weezer on the Hella Mega Tour at the following:

July 2021

24 Dallas, TX – Globe Life Field *
27 Atlanta, GA – Truist Park *
29 Houston, TX – Minute Maid Park *
31 Jacksonville, FL – TIAA Bank Field *

August 2021

1 Miami Beach, FL – Hard Rock Stadium *
4 Queens, NY – Citi Field *
5 Boston, MA – Fenway Park *
8 Washington, D.C. – Nationals Park *
10 Detroit, MI – Comerica Park *
13 Hershey, PA – Hersheypark Stadium *
15 Chicago, IL – Wrigley Field *
17 Columbus, OH – Historic Crew Stadium *
19 Pittsburgh, PA – PNC Park *
20 Philadelphia, PA – Citizens Bank Park *
23 Minneapolis, MN – Target Field *
25 Commerce City, CO – Dick’s Sporting Goods Park *
27 San Francisco, CA – Oracle Park *
29 San Diego, CA – Petco Park *

September 2021

1 Milwaukee, WI – Summerfest
3 Los Angeles, CA – Dodger Stadium *
6 Seattle, WA – T‑Mobile Park *

(* = w/ The Interrupters)

June 2022

19 Ernst-Happel Stadion – Vienna, Austria
21 Antwerps Sportpaleis – Antwerp, Belgium
22 Stadspark – Groningen, Netherlands
24 London Stadium – London, UK
25 John Smith’s Stadium – Huddersfield, UK
27 Venue TBA – Dublin, Ireland
29 Bellahouston Park – Glasgow, UK

July 2022

2 Paris La Defense Arena – Paris, France

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