Review: Little-known drummer filled in for Fall Out Boy last-minute. Did he save the show?

Even before the opening riffs of kick-off song “Love From the Other Side” were punctuated by the first of several eardrum-rattling crackles of fireworks, Fall Out Boy’s biggest fans could tell:

This wasn’t exactly the Fall Out Boy they were expecting to see on Friday night at PNC Music Pavilion.

They must have noticed right away that Andy Hurley — the shirtless, bearded, heavily tattooed member who’s sat at the drum kit for the pop-punk band the last 10 times it has performed in Charlotte — was absent; and that in the 43-year-old veteran’s place was a guy who appeared to be about half Hurley’s age, who also showed up for work shirtless, but had a clean shave, and not as much ink on his body.

The replacement drummer probably should have looked familiar to concertgoers who’d gotten to their seats on the early side Friday. Otherwise, however, there’s no good reason you would have ever seen him before in your life.

At any rate, for the more than 15 opening minutes that featured a string of Fall Out Boy 2005-to-2015-era hit singles (“The Phoenix,” “Sugar, We’re Goin Down” and “Uma Thurman”), the limber young mystery member pummeled the drums with an almost-Travis Barker-like ferocity and fervor.

Then, finally, de facto FOB frontman Pete Wentz explained what the heck was going on here.

“Well, you may have noticed, Andy had to fly home for a family emergency,” the bassist/lyricist said — which in a strictly literal sense is a weird thing to say because loyal fans may have simply noticed Hurley was missing, not that he’d gotten on an airplane to deal with personal stuff. But I digress.

Wentz continued: “And our friend Tosh from Royal & The Serpent learned 23 songs in about a day and a half, and he’s up here playing for us.

“So, welcome to Tosh’s second Fall Out Boy rehearsal!”

Royal & The Serpent was indeed that No. 2 opening act for Friday’s installment of FOB’s “So Much For (Tour) Dust” tour, named for the “So Much (for) Stardust” album the headliner released earlier this year. “Tosh,” meanwhile, is 22-year-old Tosh Peterson, who we don’t know much about beyond the fact that apparently he can unlock (at least most of) the keys to complex rock-song drum parts nearly as quickly as Neo figured out how to do kung fu in “The Matrix.”

Well, that and — according to his website — Peterson has worked previously with Bad Bunny, Machine Gun Kelly, and Gen Z music luminaries like The Kid LAROI and Lil Nas X.

Was Peterson’s timing perfect? Were his arrangements? I honestly can’t say. I can tell you a friend who’s listened to Fall Out Boy for years told me afterward that he thought not. “Some of the set,” he said, “might as well have been new songs.” All I can tell you is that Peterson’s physical, energetic style and his finesse-filled showmanship seemed consistent throughout, and for me punched up a show that didn’t always quite have its footing.

Now, to be fair, 2023 has been shaky for Fall Out Boy. The band has experienced a number of both ups and downs.

Up: Right at the end of 2022, Hurley got engaged to his longtime girlfriend, Meredith Allen.

Down: In January, Trohman, a founding member of FOB, announced he was taking a break from the band due to what he characterized as pretty serious mental-health struggles.

Up: “So Much (for) Stardust” was released in March and rocketed into Billboard’s Top 10.

Up: Trohman returned in May.

Down: Trohman seemed, to me, a little checked out — at least compared to the last time I saw him, when Fall Out Boy came here with Wiz Khalifa in 2015.

And, the most recent down: As mentioned, Hurley had to miss the Charlotte show due to a family emergency. (His fiancee tweeted on Friday that there’d been “a death in our family.”)

I thought of all of these highs and lows after Wentz mused to the crowd, mid-show: “Life is so short and is a f------ roller coaster. You can’t white-knuckle it the whole f------ time. Sometimes you gotta put your hands in the air a little bit, you know?”

So perhaps it was fitting that FOB continued on its metaphorical roller-coaster ride Friday night. Up, down. Up, down. Up, down.

For instance, while belting big, theatrical songs like “This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race” and “Centuries,” lead singer Patrick Stump was able to exploit his rich, rangy vocal cords to muscular, mellifluous effect.

But then ... he sat down at a grand piano, where he first seemed to have trouble tapping into the soulfulness of Bill Withers’s “Lean On Me” (and NO ONE in the building could successfully clap to it in time); then seemed to struggle to lock into the proper pitch on FOB ballad “What a Catch, Donnie.”

The staging of the show was somewhat hit-and-miss, too.

I couldn’t help but be dazzled by Wentz’s flamethrower-bass, which he used to spout off surprisingly robust balls of fire at the touch of a button during two more big, cinematic songs: “The Phoenix” and“My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up).“ I also oooh’ed when Wentz was made to “disappear,” a curtain having been placed over him while he stood atop Stump’s piano to recite “Baby Annihilation,” then removed to reveal he was “gone.” He reappeared just a beat or two later — in a window atop a set fashioned to be a giant tree — strumming out the opening bass line to Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train.”

But then ... I was left scratching my head over the use of a set that included a giant pink seashell as the backdrop for “Uma Thurman,” a design choice that probably made much more sense at shows in England earlier this year, when new Ethan Hawke spoken-word song “The Pink Seashell” followed “Uma” on the setlist. (Which in and of itself is a curious artistic choice, song-order-wise, since Hawke and Thurman are exes.)

There were even moments between songs when it wasn’t entirely clear whether Wentz and Stump were on the same wavelength.

The most noticeable came right before Stump’s piano break. Wentz, Peterson and guitarist Joe Trohman left the stage to give Stump a time to shine solo, but then Wentz suddenly returned and randomly remarked, “This is the part of the evening I always feel like ... the cart almost goes off the rail, but we kinda somehow f------ keep it on the rail.”

Apropos of nothing, Stump shot back, “Yeah, well, man, I tried to start a conversation and then you disappeared. ...”

“What can I say?” Wentz shrugged.

A lot of fans shrugged, too. I mean, I suppose it’s possible Wentz and Stump were kidding around. I’m just not sure.

I am sure, however, of this: Fall Out Boy knows how to pick an opening act.

In fact, an argument could be made that just as many people showed up on Friday night to see Bring Me the Horizon as did to see the headliner.

Playing out of the on-deck position, the UK metalcore outfit hurtled through a searing, crisply paced hour that not only showcased frontman Oliver Sykes’s screamingly versatile voice, but also his softer side: Among the highlights of the 11-song set came when Sykes sang “Drown” while taking a lap around the venue, stopping several times to wrap fans in warm, gentle hugs — including one right before he hopped back on stage that left a woman in big, wet, happy tears.

Of course, tapping Royal & The Serpent turned out to be a good call for Fall Out Boy, too. Without Royal & The Serpent, quick learner/heavy hitter Tosh Peterson wouldn’t have been around to fill in for Andy Hurley on such short notice.

And without Tosh Peterson, it’s possible Fall Out Boy’s show wouldn’t have gone on at all.

Fall Out Boy’s setlist

1. “Love From the Other Side”

2. “The Phoenix”

3. “Sugar, We’re Goin Down”

4. “Uma Thurman”

5. “A Little Less Sixteen Candles, a Little More ‘Touch Me’”

6. “Chicago Is So Two Years Ago”

7. “Grand Theft Autumn/Where Is Your Boy”

8. “Calm Before the Storm”

9. “This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race”

10. “Disloyal Order of Water Buffaloes”

11. “Heaven, Iowa”

12. “Hum Hallelujah”

13. “Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet”

14. “Fake Out”

15. “Lean On Me”

16. “What a Catch, Donnie”

17. “Don’t Stop Believin’”

18. “The Last of the Real Ones”

19. “Save Rock and Roll”

20. “Baby Annihilation”

21. “Crazy Train”

22. “Dance, Dance”

23. “Hold Me Like a Grudge”

24. “Dead on Arrival”

25. “My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up)“

26. “Thnks fr th Mmrs”

27. “Centuries”

28. “Saturday”