#stillwell

Today is the 23rd anniversary of what started it all: Fall Out Boy’s first ever show. There’s a lot of unanswered questions when it comes to this show, which feels storied, but reportedly was not as legendary as it may seem.

The other bands on the bill were Stillwell, Examination of the… (A Black Sabbath cover band) and Insidious (previously named The Blindfold Parade.) The video above is Stillwell's set. This was so early on in FOB’s history that they didn’t even have an official name for the band. Patrick has stated that they often referred to themselves as “Pete’s new band” at the time, but other names were being rotated in and out of use, such as Short Story; Unhappy Ending, Forget Me Not, and possibly Dressed to Thrill, although that one is unconfirmed. Ben Rose, their drummer at the time, is credited with first coming up with the name Fall Out Boy. In the future, we will post about their second show, which adds even more confusion to these names.

Speaking of Ben, he was their drummer for only the first two shows before he left the band. The band’s first-ever demos, which we’ve posted before, were recorded in his basement. Ben was in a straightedge hardcore band called XStrength in NumbersX, which Patrick notes this to Joseph Suta (drummer for *tomsawyer) and can be seen on various SIN releases.

Another little-known fact is that Patrick didn’t play guitar in the band initially- they had a 2nd guitarist. John Flamadan, who there is not much information about.

Back to the show- the most ironic part is that, while there is footage of every other band that played that night, there is seemingly NO footage of FOB playing. Two videos were uploaded by the bassist of Stillwell, Justin Wexler, who notes in the description of Stillwell’s set, “No, we do not have any video of [Fall Out Boy]. They were awful.” We contacted him about what he remembered from the show, and he gave us some details.

Justin explained that Ben Rose called him on the phone around a week before the show and asked to be put on the bill. Exam was the band that was originally in the opener spot, but he was able to drop them from the list and put what would become known as Fall Out Boy on instead. Due to the nature of them being added last minute, there’s practically no documentation of them playing the show from the time like fliers or a show listing.

If anyone happens to have any more information about this show, and if you know of anyone who may have recorded the band when they played, let us know! There were multiple people with cameras at the venue, and it is completely possible there is some footage of this that has not surfaced yet.

Video credits go to WexmericaIndustries and Forge Again Records (Justin). Below are the links to each video: