Boys Like Girls Kick Off the Soundtrack of Your Life Tour in Salt Lake City

There’s something powerful about hearing the songs that shaped the person you’ve become performed live.  It’s another level when the songs come from an artist who just so happens to live in your state or come from there.  For fans of Boys Like Girls and IDKHow this past Saturday night brought a double shot of that hometown nostalgia excitement on the Soundtrack of Your Life Tour.

Celebrating 20 years of their self-titled debut album, Boys Like Girls hit the road with an announcement that fans couldn’t wait to see it live.  Playing both their debut album and Love Drunk in full was a sure-fire way to get fans to come out in droves to help celebrate these impactful albums and the music that helped define the 2000’s and 2010’s. 

Opening the evening was Arrows in Action and unfortunately, we arrived at the tail end of their set only catching the last two songs and from the little we did see I was crushed to have missed their set but now have something to look forward to if they make it back to Utah.

Up next was local Utah favorites IDKHow who set an extremely high bar for the rest of the night.   Front man Dallon Weekes commanded the stage with an effortless charisma weaving between vocals and guitars whipping up the audience.  Utah fans showed out not only to support some of their own but to elevate them.  Singing every lyric back, every song was fueled by a connection that only a hometown crowd can provide.  It felt less like an opening set and more headline energy, lighting the fuse for what was to come. 

Throughout the stage change that fuse kept burning as anticipation burned throughout the venue.  Fans could be heard swapping stories and discussing their favorite songs that would be coming up next.  With the two albums coming up and being played in order of the tracklist everyone knew what to expect and they couldn’t wait to relive it. 

When Boys Like Girls finally took the stage, the response was immediate and deafening as the crowd roared their approval and cheered when the opening notes of “Heart Heart Heartbreak” kicked things off and when the second song “Love Drunk” hit the speakers the fuse ignited and the energy exploded with fans dancing and screaming every word.  After that song you would have thought that may have been the peak energy, but when front man Martin Johnson asked the crowd to give it up to IDKHow being a Utah band and announcing he himself lived in Utah, the venue went wild again as they gave him a heroes welcome as well. 

The magic of a show like this isn’t just the music and these aren’t just songs.  They are time capsules and glimpses inside us and the person we were when we first heard them.  The people who listened to the CD blasting in their car as they drove around with the windows down, or the late-night playlists getting us through times we didn’t know we could handle. 

After a brief pause once Love Drunk was completed, the band returned to play the self-titled album and “Hero/Heroine” ignited another burst of energy throughout the fans. As the show progressed song after song felt like reconnecting with a friend you hadn’t seen in a while, slipping effortlessly back into rhythm you never grow out of. 

For a couple of hours, we all shared that experience.  Arms raised and voices singing we all celebrated the music that we loved.

Opening night in Salt Lake City didn’t just kick off the tour, it reminded us all why we loved the music and why Boys Like Girls mattered in the first place and why they still do today.