Show Review, Photos: Boys Like Girls Celebrate Twenty Years of Songs in Sacramento
Boys Like Girls
Performing Boys Like Girls and Love Drunk in their entirety
Support: IDKHOW, Arrows in Action
May 5th, 2026
Hard Rock Live Sacramento
Wheatland, CA
Review and Photos by Jared Stossel
About halfway through their show in Sacramento last night, Boys Like Girls vocalist Martin Johnson glanced around the room and looked out at the audience with nothing but gratitude. I can’t remember the exact quote, but Johnson remarked how the crowd at Hard Rock Live Sacramento - located just under an hour away in the sprawling farmland of Wheatland - was gathered in a random building in the middle of miles of farm, 40 minutes away from home, to celebrate two albums from a band celebrating twenty years. It was a humbling and lovely moment for a band that, just a decade prior, I wasn’t sure would exist much longer.
Boys Like Girls have been making a triumphant return to stages across the globe since 2022, with a new album under their belt - 2023’s SUNDAY AT FOXWOODS - an energetic stage show, and a renewed outlook on life. The four-piece band took to the stage in Sacramento yesterday evening to give fans a special treat: full album playthroughs of their first two albums, 2006’s Boys Like Girls and its sophomore follow-up, 2009’s Love Drunk. Whether you were a fan of “just the hits” or knew every single B-side from the band’s catalog, this was the Boys Like Girls show to see.
The show was opened with an energetic set from up-and-comers Arrows In Action, who provided just enough glossy pop-rock and charisma to make an impression on those in attendance. IDKHOW (full name I Don’t Know How But They Found Me) acted as main support for the evening, notching the energy up even further. Frontman Dallon Weekes knows how to make a crowd move and react, whether he’s headlining in his own right or acting as the opening band (they even have a song about being the latter). Weekes and Co. provided just the right amount of 80s-tinged, dance-laden alternative rock to entertain the audience for their thirty-minute set.
If you’ve heard any of the tracks from the two aforementioned Boys Like Girls albums, there’s a good chance you knew what you were in for - this show was for the diehard fans. If you happened to stumble into the casino on the outskirts of Sacramento and didn’t know a thing about them, you were met with an edgy yet effervescent collection of pop-punk and alt-rock songs carved straight out of the turn of the century.
Love Drunk was performed first, kicked off with the Duran Duran-esque “Heart Heart Heartbreak” before plowing into the anthemic eponymous lead single. The album was viewed as a rather significant departure from the angst-driven rock tracks that the band first made waves with on their self-titled debut. Love Drunk fell at a time when bands like Boys Like Girls were at a crossroads: either risk fizzling out early with one hit, or try and mature the music. While it’s nice to see bands evolve, sometimes they rush the process and make the “mature” album too early on (The Summer Set received similar criticism with the release of their sophomore album, Everything’s Fine). The songs on Love Drunk have matured far better in the years since its release, and the band’s live performance proves that fact. The band truly looked like they were having a blast dusting these tracks off and playing them in the venues they’d always intended.
If you were a Boys Like Girls fan, you obviously knew the self-titled record: the fact that “The Great Escape”, “Five Minutes To Midnight”, “Hero/Heroine”, “Dance Hall Drug”, and “Thunder” were all on the same album, a debut album, is still astonishing. The release of Boys Like Girls was a near cataclysmic event in the scene upon its release, and the songs carry as much gravitas as they did twenty years ago.
Boys Like Girls’ Sacramento shows prove that they are not just back in the game - they are at the top of their game.
Boys Like Girls Set List
Love Drunk
Heart Heart Heartbreak
Love Drunk
She’s Got A Boyfriend Now
Two Is Better Than One
Contagious
Real Thing
Someone Like You
The Shot Heard ‘Round The World
The First One
Chemicals Collide
Go
Boys Like Girls
The Great Escape
Five Minutes To Midnight
Hero/Heroine
On Top of The World
Thunder
Me, You, and My Medication
Up Against The Wall
Dance Hall Drug
Learning To Fall
Heels Over Head
Broken Man
Holiday
The Great Escape/Love Drunk
