Photos by Kaitlyn Musgrove ; Written by Kaitlyn Musgrove

There are some concerts you go to because you like the artist, and then there are some concerts that somehow unlock a version of you that still has side bangs and an over-curated MySpace playlist. Boys Like Girls’ Soundtrack of Your Summer Fest at The Leader Bank Pavilion on August 29 was very much the second kind. With Hit the Lights, Cute is What We Aim For and Cartel on the lineup, it felt like someone cracked open a time capsule from the mid 2000s. 

Hit the Lights came out swinging and immediately set the pop-punk tone for the night. Cute is What We Aim For kept the nostalgia going with songs like “The Curse of the Curves,” and “Sweet Talk 101.” Cartel followed with the songs that have been taking up residence in our brains for the last 20 years. By the end of the opening sets the waterfront felt like it had been transported back to the summers when skinny jeans were non-negotiable. 

Twenty years of Boys Like Girls called for more than just a greatest-hits setlist, so the band went all in, playing both Love Drunk and their self-titled in their entirety. That meant getting to hear their massive hits everyone was waiting for, but also the deep cuts that used to fill our iPods. Hearing “Hero/Heroine,” “Thunder,” “Love Drunk,” and “Two is Better Than One” is one thing, but there was something even more fun about hearing those albums front to back, the way so many of us grew up listening to them. 

Soundtrack of Your Sumer Fest was a loud and nostalgic homecoming for Boys Like Girls. It felt like getting dropped back into those endless summers when your biggest concern was what song to put on your MySpace profile. If Boys Like Girls wanted to turn this into a summer tradition – which Martin Johnson hinted at – I’d gladly attend year after year.