Want to forget basketball? Let Fall Out Boy fill your Rupp gap.

We know how you were planning to spend this weekend. You had it mapped out — very simply, very directly, very enthusiastically.

First, you were going to gather with your pals and cheer on your University of Kentucky Wildcats. Then you were going to raise a glass (or two or seven) to the Cats winning their way through the NCAA Sweet Sixteen. Finally, if the neighbors (and police) weren’t looking, you might cap the evening by showing everyone your couch’s famous impersonation of Mount St. Helens.

Of course, that weekend won’t be happening thanks to the Cats’ brisk departure from the NCAA tournament. So, there will be no burning sofas because, ironically, our hoop dreams this March Madness quickly went up in smoke.

But don’t fret. Don’t frown. Here is a way to celebrate in the face of tourney loss fallout — an evening with Fall Out Boy. For the sake of the basketball bereaved, we will unofficially dub the platinum-selling Illinois band’s first-ever Rupp Arena concert on Saturday evening as the Bracket Busters Ball.

The performance comes on the heels of what has become a successful, visible and, times, challenging post-half time career for Fall Out Boy. Having ignited an international following with a sound informed by punk, metal, emo, old-school rock and straightforward pop, the band formed in the outlying regions of Chicago in 2001.

Where does the name Fall Out Boy come from?

As for the name, let’s recount the story for those unfamiliar with the band of how Fall Out Boy became Fall Out Boy. The moniker came from “The Simpsons.” Yep, it was inspired by a cartoon character unrelated to, but championed by, members of a cartoon family.

Among the many miscreants that weave their way in out of the daily lives of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie Simpson, is a fictional super-hero famous in movies and comic books throughout their hometown of Springfield named Radioactive Man. Since much of the town is employed at a local nuclear power plant (and, perhaps, because The Simpsons are something of a nuclear family) this is part of a vital yet peculiar city spirit. Radioactive Man’s youthful sidekick in his adventures — the Robin to his Batman, so to speak — is Fall Out Boy.

Six of Fall Out Boy’s eight albums have become Top 10 sellers with four of them hitting No. 1. The current entry, “So Much (for) Stardust,” came to us a year ago almost to the day and peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Top 200.

Halftime for Fall Out Boy arrived following a Madison Square Garden concert in October 2009 and the release of a greatest hits album titled “Believers Never Die.” That’s when everything for vocalist/rhythm guitarist Patrick Stump, bassist Pete Wentz and guitarist Joe Trohman (all founding members) along with drummer Andy Hurley (who joined in time to cut the band’s 2003 debut album, “Take This to Your Grave”) ground to a halt.

Exhausted creatively from non-stop touring and recording, along with the less-than-expected chart performance of its fourth album, “Folie à Deux” (which still managed to hit No. 8) the members parted ways for solo and side projects with few defined plans concerning when or if Fall Out Boy would be back.

Their return and that Billy Joel song

The band’s return proved massive in a very immediate sense. A more pop-directed 2013 recording, “Save Rock and Roll,” entered the Billboard Top 100 at No. 1 while its lead single, the curiously titled “My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark,” became a triple platinum-hit. A succession of arena tours, including the co-billed “Monumentour” with Paramore, would run through the next 17 months. Fall Out Boy’s fallout period, it seemed, was over.

There were still hurdles, however. Three albums and a full decade later, the band was faced with the temporary departure of guitarist Trohman. Addressing depression and mental issues he has openly discussed and battled for years, he bowed out of touring duties in January 2023. News of the break came just as “Love from the Other Side,” the first single from “So Much (for) Stardust,” was released. By June, when the band kicked off the tour that will land it in Lexington this weekend, Trohman was back on board. The concert run, dubbed “So Much for (2our) Dust,” will conclude next week in Minneapolis. A brief set of concerts in China will follow in May.

Lest anyone feel deprived of a NCAA tournament weekend without the sights and smells of couch burning, rest assured that safer, more elaborate and vastly more legal pyrotechnics will pepper Saturday’s performance. The fire will simply be better controlled.

Speaking of fire, Fall Out Boy released a cover update of Billy Joel’s time capsule hit “We Didn’t Start Fire” just as the “So Much for (2our) Dust” shows commenced last summer. Where the verses of Joel’s 1990 original were warp-speed rock recitations of topical events from the preceding four decades, Fall Out Boy’s version picked up on events that have occurred since then. While the song is not performed live as part of the band’s current shows, its recording is often played in arenas prior to showtime.

A sample verse:

“Elon Musk, Kaepernick,Texas failed electric grid, Jeff Bezos, climate change, White rhino goes extinct, Great Pacific garbage patch, Tom DeLonge and aliens, Mars rover, Avatar, Self-driving electric cars, SSRIs, Prince and The Queen die, World Trade, second plane, What else do I have to say?”

In case anyone is scratching their heads over one of the references, Tom DeLonge is the frontman of Blink 182, the California punk-pop trio that toured extensively with Fall Out Boy just prior to the latter’s 2009 split. Blink 182 will play Rupp on Aug. 1.

This begs a perhaps obvious question about the newer “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” How does Joel feel about another artist tinkering with the lyrics to one of his biggest hits? Turns out, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, as revealed in a BBC interview last year, was all for it.

“Everybody’s been wanting to know when there’s going to be an updated version of it, because my song started in ’49 and ended in ’89. It was a 40-year span,” Joel remarked. “Everybody said, ‘Well, aren’t you going to do a part two?’ I said, ‘Nah, I’ve already done part one.’ So, Fall Out Boy, go ahead. Take it away!”

Fall Out Boy/Jimmy Eat World/Hot Mulligan/Carr

When: March 30, 6:30 p.m.

Where: Rupp Arena, 430 W. Vine

Tickets: $40.50-$278.50 through ticketmaster.com.