The All-American Rejects House Party Tour Is A Lesson About Caring
When you secure an entire generation of fans because caring is cool, again
The All-American Rejects are going on a House Party Tour. Sign up at the link on their Instagram, and they might play at a house party in your city. It is nothing short of epic. In a world of absurd Ticketmaster fees, musicians pricing their fans out of concerts, and binoculars needed for nosebleeds during a stadium tour, The All-American Rejects get it. No trying to sell you $25 parking or making you wait in tedious, mind-numbing Ticketmaster queues, just caring. It has evolved into them playing in a bowling alley, a barn, on college campuses, and in backyards. They secured an entire generation of fans after an unofficial hiatus by caring.
The idea of people caring this much is refreshing. Society tells us that it is cringe to reek of passion. Rotting in bed became the default, but maybe that idea is a mass coordination by people who exist online. The All-American Rejects are a sign of the world being full of those who care.
This isn’t about money, either. With the over-financialization of everything, the All-American Rejects go against that current. They pay neighbors out of pocket not to call the cops with noise complaints and ask for a $5 donation at the door. Tyson Ritter, the lead vocalist, even said,
“We took $50,000 out of our own pockets, booked a bus, put the crew salary on, and started this wild sort of ride. I recently read something about people financing festival tickets, the complete inaccessibility of the concert experience in 2025, and how it’s juxtaposed against these wild and weird economic times. It blows my mind that our shows can still work.”
It is all reactive to a show they played in Los Angeles that was full of suits and celebrities, not real fans. It inspired them to play a free pop-up show at the University of Southern California to try and fix the overpriced, bloated concert industry. They saw what could be done that night and decided to go back to their house party roots.
This comes at a time when the United States DOJ is suing Live Nation Entertainment, Ticketmaster’s parent company, alleging they have a monopoly on the live event sector. It began with Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour which saw an astronomical demand with 14 million people trying to buy tickets at once. The crazed Swifties didn’t score the tickets. Instead, scalpers won the tickets and tried to resell them at ridiculous prices. The fans were deceived.
The anti-Ticketmaster sentiment is widespread. A post on Reddit saying, “The world needs to come together and boycott Ticketmaster” has 12,000 upvotes. The most upvoted comment says, “Does not being able to afford tickets to anything count as already boycotting?”
For many, a concert experience isn’t possible. I remember when I saw Morgan Wallen for less than $200. It was beautiful. I sat in the second level perpendicular to the stage with a great view. Now, those same tickets on his current tour are closer to $467. How do you rationalize that? It is only the beginning of what you pay. Don’t forget parking, drinks, and maybe some cool merch. But going back to the All-American Rejects, the response to the House Party Tour has been phenomenal. It was very much people saying “this is what I want” and “this is what I crave”! Sure, it’s a marketing tool, but the best marketing is word of mouth. The tour has engulfed social media with people saying,
“Holy crap he is killing it - the vibe is just like the $20 outdoor concerts I got to grow up on in the 90s”
“The most we’ve been back in years.”
“I would pass away from happiness if I saw them.”
People want to care. They want to see those who ooze passion and experience the joy that live music brings. They don’t want life to be inconvenient, full of friction that makes anything impossible, and feel as if they are only dollar signs.
We should realize what this says about our culture. Caring is cool, and it works. You can’t scale this either. A backyard reaches capacity, a house can only hold so many people, and the intimacy dwindles the bigger the venue becomes.
But The All-American Rejects didn’t start the tour with the idea of scaling it and monetizing every inch of the experience. The All-American Rejects started this because they cared about their fans. And as for the $50,000 that they paid to kick this tour off, I am sure they will get back all of that and then some. Money will come as an unintended side effect. This is a lesson in caring and sometimes, just caring is enough.
Appreciate you for reading.
-Scantron
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