WICKER PARK — Fall Out Boy has a following and proved it Monday.
"Today is kind of a big deal. We did not expect this. Thank you!" the band's Patrick Stump told a packed crowd midway through a surprise, sold-out show Monday at Subterranean, 2011 W. North Ave.
The pop punk band's frontman ordered a swell of ecstatic, swooning fans to take three steps back from the stage at varying points during the two-hour concert.
On Monday, Fall Out Boy, which had taken a three-year hiatus, released a new song, "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dar (Light 'Em Up). The band also announced a new album, "Save Rock and Roll," coming May 7, and kicked off its world tour.
News of the show spread quickly through social media and sold out within minutes.
Devoted fans took to Craigslist to search for tickets at the small, intimate 375-capacity club.
"I'm willing to drink a cup of anyone's vomit. I know, it's f---ed up, but I'm desperate," wrote one fan from Lincoln Park who offered to pay $700 for tickets in a Craigslist post.
WBEZ captured video footage of the lines snaking down North Avenue before the comeback concert.
Stump apologized to fans.
"Sorry about the wait. I mean the line outside of here and not the three years or anything," Stump said jokingly before eschewing critics and bloggers and people that say things on the Internet in general.
"Take a snapshot of this moment in your head, don't let them tell you how it was, remember how it was for you," Stump said as the music and mosh pits started up again in force.
Excited fans reported that they came from near and far to listen to old favorites like "Dance, Dance," and "Sugar, We're Going Down" before the evening ended with two encores: "Chicago Show-Two Years Ago" and "Saturday."
Describing their absence as, "Patrick [Stump] had his solo thing, Pete [Wentz] was in Black Cards, I don't know what Joe [Trohman] was doing and Andy [Hurley] had F*ck City," Gina Tabascio, 19, called the concert "amazing" and said it was "great to see them back home at such as small venue."
Kathyrn Lynch, 20, a nursing student at University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, drove three hours to Chicago for the show which she said was "so worth it," even with a 9:30 a.m. class Tuesday and a long drive back to campus.
Kristen Hughes, 24, a DePaul University student, described herself as "a superfan." She said she "loved the tiny venue, to see a band this big in a venue that small, it was great."
Robert Gomez, owner of Subterranean, said he'd discovered a base of fans standing on the Damen L tracks near the back door of the club and had felt so bad for them that he opened the back door of his club throughout the show so that they could hear better.
Gomez told DNAinfo.com Chicago he "had no doubt that it would sell out, it was a question of how fast."
"We were sworn to secrecy until this morning's ticket announcement," Gomez said.
Booked by music promoter powerhouse Jam Productions, Gomez said that SubT was selected as the venue for Fall Out Boy's first show in a while because the band wanted to start out at a smaller club and "ramp up" to larger venues.
According to Fall out Boy's world tour schedule, the band will be back in Chicago May 16 at The Riviera, 4746 N. Racine Ave. in Uptown. Tickets go on sale Friday.
