Aah, the rock band tour. A national tour of some of the “Emo-est” bands of our time.  Granted who knows where The Cab came from, but we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt for now. Weirdly enough Panic and Dashboard were put as “co-headliners” but in reality we all know it is the tour's way of not hurting Chris Carrabba's feelings.  These tours are 2nd nature for a band like Dashboard.   But  that's beside the point...

The night began with The Cab's performance.  Apparently, lead singer Alex has been suffering from bronchitis.  I’d say he did a damn good job despite of it. The only problem was that their album is so well produced that it’s literally impossible to pull-off live (especially when you are not the headliner). The sound and mix was not the best, but then they were the opening band.  I think bands like Panic and Dashboard would call that “paying your dues”.

Next up was Plain White T’s, and I gotta say-- I am not the biggest fan of this band.   I think the writing style is too similar from song to song, and lets be honest-- most of us only know that one song.  But to my very own surprise, they killed it!  I had no idea the lead singer had such a great voice.  It wasn’t like the voice of an angel speaking to me from the heavens, but I was very impressed with his stage performance. Overall great set.

Next up was Dashboard Confessional. Now I’m a bit biased, because I’m such a fan of anything Chris does. But as usual, the set was solid.  He’s gotten to that point in his career where he can play a 45-minute of singles, which is pretty cool. But the greatest part about it is that he doesn’t do that.  He plays some of the songs on the record that only the real fans would have bothered to check-out.  It was a great set, top to bottom.

Last was Panic at the Disco.  Truthfully, a very interesting performance.  Brandon, lead vocalist, showed off his talents  as a multi-instrumentalist, and Ryan also lended his vocal abilities to many songs.  It was cool to hear their old songs stripped down and less produced, but the bottom line is that those songs are meant to be played in the style they were before.  It's almost like the guys are saying “hey we’ve made it, so let's try to show people we're just rocker dudes…”  But given the size of their fanbase, it may not work out for them. I guess they're now trying to be an “indie band”.  It just cracks me up. 

Anyway, overall the show was pretty solid.  Stay tuned to SoundTrack for video interviews and other backstage footage from the show (taped by yours truly).