Wednesday nights aren’t typically the stuff of rock concert legend, but Boys Like Girls made a strong case for rethinking that entirely.
MGM Northfield Park played host to a celebration two decades in the making, and even this almost-40-year-old who was privately dreading a late-night weeknight show walked out with absolutely no regrets. Consider this my formal apology to my own sleep schedule.
They Opened With the Hits, and Didn’t Apologize
The set kicked off with Heart Heart Heartbreak, the song that gave the tour its name, and rolled straight into Love Drunk before the crowd had time to fully process what was happening. Conventional wisdom says you save your biggest songs for the end, but Boys Like Girls clearly operate by their own rules. It was a bold move that immediately told you: we’re not here to tease you, we’re here to deliver.
And deliver they did, for two hours and twenty-six minutes, including a 10-minute intermission that served as the hinge between their two albums. The band played Love Drunk and Boys Like Girls back-to-back in full, front to back. No hits-only shuffle. The complete experience.
Martin Johnson Still Has It
Twenty years is a long time for a vocalist to hold onto the thing that made them special in the first place. Martin Johnson hasn’t lost a step. He sounded exactly like he did in 2005, which is either the result of exceptional vocal discipline or some kind of deal with the pop-punk gods. Either way, it was remarkable to witness.
What made it even more memorable was how visibly the moment meant to him. Johnson got choked up multiple times throughout the night, stopping to thank the crowd for keeping the band alive over the past two decades. It didn’t feel like stage banter, it felt real, and the audience felt it too.
The Stage Was a Whole Thing
The production deserves its own mention. The band performed against a backdrop of CRT tube TVs, the kind that defined the 2000s, playing their music videos in real time as the songs unfolded live. It was nostalgic in the best possible way, and honestly, whoever sourced twenty working TVs deserves some kind of award.
A Crowd That Spanned Generations
One of the more unexpected highlights of the night was looking around and seeing who else showed up. The audience ran the full generational spectrum, older fans who were there the first time around all the way down to Gen Z kids who clearly discovered this band on their own terms. Everyone was locked in. Everyone was singing. Few things in live music are as satisfying as watching a band genuinely connect across that kind of age gap.
The Bottom Line
Boys Like Girls are one of those rare acts where the album experience and the live experience are the same thing, and that’s a shrinking club. What you loved in your headphones translates to the stage with zero dilution. If you’ve been on the fence, get off it. If you’ve only heard a song or two, that’s enough reason to go. They left every single person in that building happy, and that’s not a small thing.
Don’t sleep on this tour. Even on a Wednesday.
Full Set List:
Heart Heart Heartbreak
Love Drunk
She’s Got a Boyfriend Now
Tow is Better than One
Contagious
Real Thing
Someone Like You
The Shot Heard ‘Round the World
The First One
Chemicals Collide
Go
Intermission
The Great Escape
Five Minutes to Midnight
Hero/Heroine
On Top of the World
Thunder
Me, You, and My Medication
Up Against the Wall
Dance Hall Drug
Learning to Fall
Hells over Head
Broken Man
Holiday
The Great Escape / Love Drunk.
