It's time to break it out.

Someone requested the Rocket Summer, so the Rocket Summer you shall have. Enjoy!

The Rocket Summer - Break It Out (live in Louisville) [altpress.com exclusive) from Alternative Press on Vimeo.

PS - if you miss this blog's daily updates, head to AltPress.com where you'll find not one but four brand spankin' new blogs, one for each editor. Check 'em out!

Never doubt me!!

Sonny - Moss (live in Little Rock) [altpress.com exclusive] from Alternative Press on Vimeo.

The Matches - Salty Eyes (live in Louisville) [altpress.com exclusive] from Alternative Press on Vimeo.

More videos coming soon...

...I totally promise. We have a ton of footage to go through, and we're slowly but surely chopping it up and getting it ready for consumption. (We do have a magazine to put out, too, you know.) Keep it locked here and you'll see something new shortly!

You want videos? You're gonna get videos.

So, so, so, so, so much AP Tour footage will be posted on here within the next week or so. But for now, here's a few nuggets to keep your appetite whet. These are the final three songs of All Time Low's set in Cleveland, including their encore (and the insanity of "Dammit"), all shot from sidestage (or, in "Dammit"'s case, walking around onstage). Check 'em out:


All Time Low - Dear Maria, Count Me In (live in Cleveland - AP Tour) from Alternative Press on Vimeo.


All Time Low - Remembering Sunday (live in Cleveland - AP Tour) from Alternative Press on Vimeo.


All Time Low and friends - Dammit (live in Cleveland - AP Tour) from Alternative Press on Vimeo.

AP TOUR PHOTOS CLEVELAND part3

AP TOUR PHOTOS CLEVELAND part2

I'm going back to su casa, back from los muertos...

Loyal AP blog reader Annette took the following video of the Matches performing a Spanglish version of "What Katie Said" at the last stop of the AP Tour in Cleveland. Listen for the "LA BAMBA!" That's my favorite part.



I managed to grab Shawn and Jon's translation sheets after the set -- check 'em out:

AP TOUR PHOTOS CLEVELAND

THNKS FR TH BMBZL

My Bamboozle experience can be summed up in two sentences: I interviewed both Panic At The Disco and Bret Michaels in the span of less than an hour. I think my head is about to explode.

Look for my sunburned, bearded face on MySpace in the coming weeks; AP teamed up with Tom & Co. to film a series of somewhat unorthodox content over the past two days, ranging from impromptu acoustic sets inside a storage room for a dozen lucky fans to having a frontman from one band try to sneak himself onstage for a certain hip-hop superstar's set, and all sorts of craziness in between. We had an amazing film crew out with us who will be editing everything together over the next week or so, and we should have some pretty awesome footage for you to check out soon.

Running around conducting all these interviews left me little time to actually stop and watch bands, although I did catch the following:

SATURDAY

-A bunch of peeps went off hard for Vinnie from the Movielife's set with Set Your Goals as his backing band (including Jordan from SYG who was standing next to me sidestage, fingerpointing his heart out).

-MxPx got the crowd revved up with "Secret Weapon," "Responsibility" and many more -- these dudes still have it, for sure.

-I finally got to watch the Rocket Summer without having to collect subscription cards in the middle of it, and even though Bryce only had a half-hour, he made the most of it, playing "Do You Feel," "Stay," "Brat Pack" and the supremely awesome "So In This Hour." Plus, Danny, their guitar tech, let me fire off a confetti cannon during "So Much Love" -- yes!!

-Set Your Goals were fan-fucking tastic. Write a new album already, dudes, I need new songs to sing along to!

-I heard Less Than Jake's set from behind the stage, and it was pretty much all classics from their back catalog, including their 30-second gem "Anchor." They also shot off streamers which got stuck all over the stage. Rock 'n' roll!

-Paramore brought it hard, even in the wind and rain. Nothing stopped them, or the crowd from singing along verrrry loudly.

-As much as I love Jimmy Eat World, they're pretty boring to watch live, and their Bamboozle set was no different than usual. They did play "Crush," though -- points for that!

-Snoop Dogg is the fucking best ever. I didn't know what to expect from his set but wow, dude is one hell of a performer, and his band is really tight musically. I'd go see him again any time.

SUNDAY

-"What It Is To Burn" by Finch is stil a jam, nearly a decade later. Someone needs to make a Monster Screamo Hits compilation with that, "Ohio Is For Lovers," the one A Static Lullaby song people actually know, etc. -- I know I'd buy a copy!

-Scary Kids Scaring Kids drew a pretty sizable crowd to the mainstage for their early-afternoon slot, with plenty of mosh pit action breaking out.

-But their crowd was nowhere near the size of All Time Low's across the parking lot -- seriously, there must've been 15,000 people watching them (or so it felt like, at least). When Alex let the crowd sing the hook to "Six Feet Under The Stars," I actually got chills, turned to their manager and said, "Fuck." Hey dudes, don't forget me when you're playing arenas in six months!

-Circa Survive blew me away with an electric set featuring "The Difference Between Medicine And Poison Is In The Dose," "The Great Golden Baby," "Mandala" and more. Anthony Green did a sick stage dive during "In Fear And Faith," too. What a gnarly dude.

-Say Anything played a surprise set next but I instead went to go see how Forever The Sickest Kids would be received at their very first Bamboozle. Their second-stage crowd was ENORMOUS. Hey dudes, don't forget me when you're playing arenas in three months!

-As Tall As Lions ruled hard. They played two new songs along with "Love, Love, Love (Love, Love)," "Song For Luna" and "Into The Flood," plus two songs off their self-titled album, "Stab City" and "Maybe I'm Just Tired," with a three-piece horn section (tenor sax, trombone and trumpet). It was gorgeous.

-Who in the world are We The Kings and how did they get so popular?

-I was able to watch a few songs of the Starting Line's last-ever show, and it was a bit of a tearjerker. From what I heard, they were exclusively playing songs off Say It Like You Mean It, and the crowd was pumped.

-I closed my night out with a few songs by the Color Fred, including "Get Out" and "Complaintor" (which is about Taking Back Sunday -- whoops, cat's out of the bag!). Fred is seriously one of the nicest, most humble dudes ever; here's a guy who a year ago was playing the mainstage at Bamboozle with TBS and is now on one of the tinier side stages playing to a fraction of the crowd but still giving it his all. Mad respect.

Oh, pizza guy, where are you? All I want is to consume your goodness then pass out. If you're reading this, turn off your computer and bring me a large pepperoni and sausage!

Last song of the last show of the AP Tour.

And boy, was it a doozy:

Cleveland rocks.

Sure, the subject line is cliche, but goddamn if the closing night of the AP Tour tonight in Cleveland wasn't the best show of the whole trek (or at least the two dozen shows I saw). The sold-out crowd was pumped, the bands went insane (how about Sonny's dive into the drumset a la Kurt Cobain? That looked painful!) and the whole thing was just one gigantic party all night long. I met so many of you lovely blog readers tonight that my brain can't even recall all the names, but I do want to thank one person in particular, a girl named Laura E., for flying all the way up from Florida with her dad (after having already seen the tour twice) just to say she saw the last show of the 2008 AP Tour. Laura, the Rocket Summer is lucky to have you as a fan.

Also, for those wondering, my absurd dream became a reality: The Matches performed "What Katie Said" partially en Espanol -- Shawn said he couldn't do the whole song because it was a lot of words, but he and Jon inserted choice Spanish phrases into the lyrics (i.e. "your house" became "su casa"). Oh, there was also a "La bamba!" somewhere in there, too. I filmed it from onstage but I'm not sure how well the audio came out; hopefully some videos will pop up on YouTube shortly so you can all relive the magic.

Tonight's show ended with a bang -- literally. First, during All Time Low's "Dear Maria, Count Me In," some pranksters loaded up TRS's confetti cannons and shot them off at the band, followed by RH, Sonny's tour manager, doing a beauty of a stage dive right into the waiting crowd (video coming soon!). Then, for the encore, we got a really gorgeous rendition of "Remembering Sunday," followed by what can only be described as absolute mayhem when roughly the entire tour (including yours truly) took the stage for a cover of Blink-182's "Dammit." There were 10 or so vocalists, a half-dozen guitarists, a couple umbrellas floating around; it was definitely a sight to behold. (Again, video coming soon!)

Oh, right: Then, Jack Barakat dove off the stage, smacked his face on the forehead of some poor girl and broke his nose.

Seriously.

He eventually got back to the stage and was dripping (and spitting) blood; it was not a pretty sight (video coming soon!!). Don't worry, ATL fans: Jack's in good spirits and at a local Cleveland hospital right now having his nose looked at. Here's a picture of the ambulance taking him away (courtesy of our buddy Ian over at Hopeless Records):



As far as I know, ATL will not be missing their Campus Invasion or Bamboozle sets this weekend. Besides, you can still play guitar with a broken nose -- suck it up, Barakat!

(Just kidding, buddy. I love you!)

And that's the truth -- I've grown to love everyone on this tour, from the bands to their techs to their merch people to our bus drivers and anyone else who might have had a hand in keeping the AP Tour running smoothly for the past seven weeks. You honestly have no idea how much work goes into putting on the show night after night, and every single person involved was a crucial member of the process of delivering the rock to the masses. Seriously, thank you to every single person who spent the past two months of their life on the road alongside AP. It means the world to us.

And continuing with our Oscar speech, thank you, blog reader. Thank you for coming to the show. For many of you, thank you for coming to multiple shows. Thank you for supporting the bands and buying their music and clothing. Thank you for donating your money to Keep A Breast (www.keep-a-breast.org). Thank you for stopping by the AP table and making Chris, Tim, Rachel and I feel like we were a part of something much bigger than ourselves. And even if you couldn't make it to the AP Tour this year, thanks for following our trek through this blog, our myspace, our website and everywhere else. We honestly, truly had no idea this tour would be such a success -- at a quick count, 32 of the 43 shows were completely sold out, with the other 11 being extremely close. So thank you for providing all of our bands with packed houses and good vibes.

Okay, time to wrap up the lovefest and hit the sack. I'll be sleeping in my own bed for about four hours, then I have to get up and catch a flight to New Jersey for the Bamboozle. Even though the AP Tour is over, expect some post-tour updates in the way of Bamboozle wrap-ups, plus more videos and pictures from the road. Don't delete us from your Favorites folder just yet, we ain't through with you!

AP TOUR PHOTOS NEW HAVEN part2

AP TOUR PHOTOS PITTSBURGH part2

AP TOUR PHOTOS PITTSBURGH part1

People with glass tables should watch their shins.

Long story short: I ran into a $3,000 glass table at Diesel, the club in Pittsburgh, tonight, and almost fell on/through it. Thank god my shins there were to absorb most of the blow, and are now swollen, cut up and all-around in bad, bad shape. If you're coming to the Cleveland show tonight, ask to see them so you can laugh at my stupidity.

And still, no one's brought me any Arizona Fruit Punch, but not for lack of trying: One of my totally awesome street teamers, Mark (hey dude!), said he searched all over the city but couldn't find any. Curses! Luckily, he and fellow volunteer Rachel kicked mondo amounts of butt tonight, from helping keep the line to meet Forever The Sickest Kids under control to getting seemingly every last person in the dang venue tonight to sign up.

Maybe they wore out the crowd by doing that, because Pittsburgh, you were officially dead tonight. The crowd finally woke up when Bryce stage-dove, mic in hand, during his loop-pedals song (which he told me later has no name but people have taken to calling it "Wake Up" -- I can't imagine why). From that point on, the crowd seemed to get into the show, but all 600 of you owe FTSK, Sonny and the Matches an apology for not dancing your butts off like a good crowd should.

Okay, it's definitely way, way beyond my bedtime (curse you, 5 a.m. bus calls!); I'm gonna go wedge myself into my coffin-bunk, crash for a few hours and then wake up in home sweet home, Cleveland, Ohio. There's 1100 of you coming to the show tonight, and I expect high-fives from no less than 897 of you. Make it happen.

AP TOUR PHOTOS BUFFALO part2

AP TOUR PHOTOS ALLENTOWN part2

AP TOUR PHOTOS ALLENTOWN

AP TOUR PHOTOS NEW HAVEN

Everybody get dangerous, everybody get dangerous (booyah).

Okay, first off: Allentown, Pennsylvania, is a pretty dead city once the sun goes down. Our bus call tonight is 5 a.m. but unlike Sauget, Illinois, there are no strip clubs (or Mack Marakats) to keep me entertained until we hit the road. So here we sit on the bus -- me, Shawn and Justin from the Matches, their merch girl Monaca, Erica from Keep A Breast and Seth, the guitarist from the Rocket Summer -- jamming the new Weezer record at an absurdly loud volume. If you're in Allentown and reading this before 5 a.m., come on over and listen with us! But we won't let you on the bus unless you bring Wendy's.

Anyway.

We played Crocodile Rock tonight, and it was an... interesting venue, to say the least. Not my favorite of the tour by any means, but it had its charm. For example, when someone would take a shower upstairs, it would drip down the walls below -- onto the AP table, and more importantly, me. Alas, if only All Time Low sold umbrellas instead of just singing about them... (Dudes! That is a great merch idea! Cut me in on that!)

I've officially decided to nickname Allentown's crowd "Screamy McScreamerson." Good lord, you people howled at every last stage movement, light flicker and sweat drip (of which there were plenty). Forever The Sickest Kids and All Time Low were treated as how I imagine Elvis and the Beatles were 40-50 years ago, only with less hoop skirts and more cleavage-baring tops. (Seriously, girls, put those things away and just enjoy the show.) Even I got some fan adoration from a few people, including an awesome girl who brought me home-baked snickerdoodles, as well as thoughts of Arizona fruit punch (which proved to be a tough get -- I told you people it's harder to find than you think). But even though my throat remained parched, my stomach was filled by an awesome kid who randomly bought me a hot dog when he saw me rubbing my belly. Dude, I don't know who you are, but you are the best person in the whole world as of right now.

The tour is winding down; tomorrow in Pittsburgh, even though it's only the second-to-last show, is sort of everyone's last hurrah together as many of the bands have to leave immediately after the Cleveland show. Expect some big brodowns in PGH tomorrow; I personally plan on dragging as many people to Primanti Bros. as possible to give 'em a good meal. See you there!