Boy! Kids heart Fall Out Boy

If Saturday night's show was Homecoming, then Fall Out Boy was the beloved football team; bassist Pete Wentz their star quarterback and adored king.

Fall Out Boy -- Wentz, lead singer/guitarist Patrick Stump, guitarist Joe Trohman and drummer Andy Hurley -- were back in black in Rosemont for the third show of the Young Wild Things Tour, which also features local lads the Plain White T's, as well as Gym Class Heroes and Cute is What We Aim For.

"We used to watch Hulk Hogan wrestle at Allstate Arena when it was the Rosemont Horizon," Wentz said. "It is crazy for us to be playing here right now."

Affectionately referred to as FOB, the four-piece band from Chicago's North Shore led more than 18,000 fans of mostly shrieking girls, their smart boyfriends and emo boys through a whirlwind 90-minute set of arena rock anthems taken from their two most recent albums, 2005's "From Under the Cork Tree," and this year's "Infinity on High."

FOB kicked off the 20-plus song set somewhat surprisingly with "Sugar, We're Going Down," the band's first hit single and arguably their best-known hit. Although a surprising starter, the song whipped fans into an early frenzy that didn't let up.

All the while Wentz, the bands frontman and main mouthpiece, and Trohman strutted across the stage to high pitched squeals from girls -- who risked life and limb to join the mosh pit -- and seemed able to reach a new octave each time either musician neared the stage's edge.

While scores of nonplussed parents on chaperone-duty for the evening struggled to grasp the spectacle of walls of fire, loud explosions, a seizure-inducing light show and visual production, the kids were all right.

They screamed every syllable until their vocal cords caved, revered Wentz's idioms of self-confidence and belief like the gospel and danced to the point of collapse.

And Wentz, who went without his signature hooded-sweatshirt Saturday, knows the band's audience, an audience that replaced Bic lighters with the light from their cell phones and Blackberries during the set's few slower songs and captured every moment with digital cameras and mobiles.

"Where are all the boys in the moshpit?" Wentz said as a group in the middle of the floor pogoed. "Oh, so there are still guys who come to Fall Out Boy shows."

Just like the popular kids in high school, Fall Out Boy boasts an almost equal number of devotees and haters. But no matter which side of the fence you sit, there is no denying the band's return on investment capabilities -- a $30 ticket bought 90 minutes of high-energy, well-produced rock that left many fans saying, "thnks fr th Mmris,": translation, "thanks for the memories."

Villa Park's own Plain White T's -- whose single "Hey There Delilah" has reached saturation levels of radio play -- delivered a half-hour set of songs about love lost and found.

Saturday was a return to old stomping grounds for the quintet, and though the T's are relatively new to arena-sized shows the band did not seem like the freshman team that takes the field before the varsity players.

"Is this the biggest show we have ever played in Chicago or what," lead singer Tom Higgenson asked his bandmates before launching into "Our Time Now."

Gym Class Heroes, the lone non-emo band on the bill, crunched out a 40-minute set of tunes taken from their latest album, "As Cruel As School Children."

Fans who arrived early heard the syrupy sweet songs of Cute is What We Aim For, who played a half-hour set with songs from its 2006 release, "The Same Old Blood Rush with a New Touch."