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!