Honda Civic Tour

The 2008 Honda Civic Tour features three bands from the Fueled by Ramen Decaydance Label, and also Motion City Soundtrack as the fourth band, the headliner being Panic At The Disco. The main goal of the tour is to help with global issues like ways to find new fuel, with a portion of ticket sales going to help such causes to help the environment. On May 9th, the tour stopped in Philly.

The first band was Phantom Planet, a band from Southern California famous for their song ‘California’ which was the ‘theme song’ for the show ‘The O.C.’ years ago. They were very energetic, especially front man Alex Greenwald, who enjoyed jamming out on his guitar, jumping around the stage like crazy, and having the audience join in during each song. Everyone was singing along to ‘California,’ which they emphasized before playing that they had indeed written themselves, which they were proud of. They were also promoting the recent release of their fourth studio album, ‘Raise the Dead,’ and played the first four songs from the album-‘Raise the Dead,’ ‘Dropped,’ ‘Leader,’ and ‘Do the Panic.’ The band ended with ‘California,’ making way for the even more popular The Hush Sound.

The Chicago band The Hush Sound was surprisingly good live despite mixed reviews on their live shows. Greta Salpeter, lead singer and keyboardist, got the crowd pumped up with the first song ‘Medicine Man.’ They followed with many more songs in which the guitarist, Bob Morris, had the main lyrics. Together the two got the crowd singing, proving The Hush Sound to be more popular than the previous band. Other new songs, like ‘Honey’ and ‘The Boys are Too Refined’ were played, as well as one of their most popular, ‘Wine Red.’ Their new album, ‘Goodbye Blues,’ is one of the newest for the Fueled by Ramen label.

Motion City Soundtrack was third in the lineup. When they played most of the people hiding out from the rain in the huge merchant tent had to come out and see them. Some could argue that they were almost as popular as Panic at the Disco, for nearly everyone was singing along to their songs, and most knew them by heart. They were amazing live, and played many songs from all of their albums, their set lasting an hour. They got the crowd excited for Panic to come on and everyone was singing along to their well-known song, ‘Everything is Alright.’ They ended the set with ‘It Had to be You,’ a song from their most recent album.

Panic at the Disco was up next. It seemed obvious who the crowd had come for and after much anticipation the band appeared to a screaming crowd of fans and the flashes of hundreds of cameras that went up in unison as the band began their first song ‘We’re So Starving’ from their new album ‘Pretty. Odd.’ Panic continued with the first single from their new album, ‘Nine in the Afternoon’ and then went on to play various songs from their first album ‘A Fever you Can’t Sweat Out’ as well as their second. Funny and energetic, the crowd was singing every word. Front man Brendon Urie, guitarist Ryan Ross, and bassist Jon Walker, joked with the crowd and themselves alike. Drummer Spencer Smith preferred to hide behind his drums, but wasn’t forgotten. Brendon occasionally went to jam out on his guitar beside him. Everyone was screaming the words to ‘I Write Sins Not Tragedies’ the song that made the band from Las Vegas famous more than two years ago. ‘Northern Downpour’ was also played, a song from their new album, and proved to be absolutely amazing live. Then Ryan, Jon, and Spencer took a break, leaving Brendon to sing ‘Time to Dance’ with the help of his guitar and the audience yelling out the beginning beats to the upbeat dance song. The rest of the band came back to finish with two songs from ‘Pretty. Odd’-‘Pas de Cheval,’ and ‘Mad as Rabbits.’ Panic alone played for two hours, pleasing fans with their energetic music from ‘A Fever you Can’t Sweat Out’ and the Beatles-esque sound of their new CD ‘Pretty. Odd.’