By: ASHLEY ALLISON

Pop-punk rockers, Boys Like Girls and The All American Rejects made a stop at Central Michigan University, Sunday, October 14th.

The co-headlining run also featured opener, The Ready Set. Jordan Witzigreuter, 23, started the tour off right and pleased The Ready Set fans by playing favorites such as, “Love Like Woe” and  “Spinnin.” The set was just long enough for Witzigreuter to jump around the stage and pump up the crowd before the next act went on.

Boys Like Girls was the first of the two headliners to play and arguably the most anticipated of the bunch. After announcing an indefinite hiatus back in February of 2011, Martin Johnson, front man and singer, tweeted this past November that “Boys Like Girls is back” and they were. In fact, they were more then back, they were in your face.

The more matured band than last seen in 2010 open their set with a remix of their new song, “Be Your Everything.” The passion, excitement and eagerness to play in front of a live crowd were on the faces of all four members. I could feel the energy when I was down in the barricade and when I went back to my seat. The crowd could feel it too. Older fans sang along to a mash up of old songs from the bands first self-titled album that included “Dance Hall Drug”, “Me You and My Medication” and “Hero/Heroine.” Johnson’s voice was flawless and on-point. The band got the crowd involved by pulling students on stage in two separate occasions, once to sing the popular duet, “Two Is Better Than One” with Johnson.

The set closed, as it has every time I have ever seen them, with “The Great Escape.” This time was different. This time they played “The Great Escape” but added the popular Beatles anthem, “Hey Jude” to the end. My only complaint, the ridiculous time it took for them to get on stage. Don’t we do sound check before the show?

The All American Rejects closed the show. The Oklahoma rockers fell short in my book. Singer, Tyson Ritter was last to run on stage and last on my list of best singers of the night. It isn’t that he was bad; I just had extremely high expectations after hearing him on records. The band opened with “Dirty Little Secrets, a crowd pleaser if I had ever seen one. They then moved into songs off their fourth album, Kids In the Streets.

Ritter’s stage presence was different; he enjoyed facing the side more than the audience. The production value of their show was great, the sound and lights were better than most rock shows of the same scale. The final song of the night was the bands most popular single and the most memorable song of 2009, “Gives You Hell.”

Overall the show was entertaining and from the looks of the crowd, hot and sweaty.