The Format are back on the road behind their latest record Boycott Heaven, and that journey brought Nate Ruess and Sam Means to Philadelphia’s Franklin Music Hall. Between the band’s original rise and eventual breakup nearly two decades ago, Ruess’ hugely successful run with FUN, and a solo career on top of that, these two have seen plenty of the music industry’s peaks and valleys. None of that history dampened the appetite for their reunion – the show sold out almost instantly.
But Ruess and Means have treated this tour as something bigger than just concert dates. A few weeks before hitting the road, the band announced “Saturdays in the Park,” a series of community events tied to each tour stop. In Philadelphia, they took over nearby Franklin Square for a few acoustic performances, drawing a big crowd while giving local organizations a platform to share their work with attendees.
By the time The Format actually took the stage that evening, the energy inside the venue was hard to contain. Ruess remains as captivating a frontman as he’s ever been, and he wore his emotions openly throughout the night.
The setlist was a clear love letter to the back catalog. Of the twenty songs they ran through, only three came from the new album – a conscious decision to center the night around the songs people have been carrying with them for the better part of twenty years. A cover of R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” fit the room perfectly, landing to the kind of reception you’d expect from an audience already locked in on every word. And playing as a full band – a rarity given that their previous comebacks had largely been acoustic affairs – felt like something fans didn’t quite know they needed until they had it.
Two hours is a long time to be on stage these days, when plenty of headliners are calling it a night closer to seventy-five minutes. The Format pushed well beyond that, and the crowd gave no indication they wanted it to end. It was genuinely difficult to tell who was having a better time – the fans finally getting the full reunion they’d been waiting on, or the band rediscovering what it feels like to play in a room that invested.
For a group that has walked away more than once, The Format looked anything but finished on Saturday night.
