Rock band The Fray took the stage at the Bryce Jordan Center as the surprise national act on Friday night at THON 2025. With popular hits such as “How to Save a Life” and “You Found Me,” both with over 500 million streams on Spotify alone, the band made the trip from Denver for the annual 46-hour Penn State student dance marathon in support of pediatric cancer patients through the Four Diamonds at Penn State Health Children’s Hospital.
Taking the stage at about 9:10 p.m. to immense crowd noise, The Fray kept the energy going with a “We Are” chant.
The first song the band played was “She Is” but it quickly got the crowd back into it with one of its hit songs, “Over My Head,” as most of the BJC sang along.
The Fray took a short break to do some crowd work. “It’s good to be here, how we feeling?” lead singer Joe King asked.
After a rambunctious response from the crowd, the group went right into “Heartbeat” and “Closer To Me” with no break. Its subsequent rendition of “Look After You” sparked the crowd to take out their flashlights and wave them side to side for a slower song that nevertheless fit the spirit of THON perfectly.
King took time after “Look After You” to introduce his drummer Zach Johnson, who dove into a quick 30-second solo performance. He followed this up with the intro to “Love Don’t Die,” another perfect choice for the THON crowd.
Walking through all of the dancers and high-fiving everyone in sight, King joined the crowd for “Hurricane.” He even pretended to take one unlucky dancer’s hat, before giving it back a few seconds later.
On his way back up to the stage, King made sure to grab a water gun and get some shots off into the crowd stating, “It got a little wet out there.”
Once back on stage, The Fray thanked the crowd and went right into “Syndicate” and “Never Say Never,” with many putting their arms around each other and swaying to the melody of the latter.
“You Found Me” kept the bangers rolling, somehow topping the other songs in terms of the crowd sing-along. The band slowed the tempo after that to get a message across before getting into an emotional rendition of “How To Save A Life,” providing an electric way to end a THON performance that most in attendance likely will remember for a long time.
