Albums : Panic! At The Disco : Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die!
Albums : Panic! At The Disco : Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die!
Listen To Panic! At The Disco : Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die!
Who is Panic! At The Disco?
Panic! at the Disco (stylized for a time as Panic at the Disco) is an American rock band from Las Vegas, Nevada, formed in 2004. Since its inception, the band's line-up has included Brendon Urie (lead vocals, guitar, piano) and Spencer Smith (drums). Former touring bassist Dallon Weekes officially joined the band in 2012.
The band formed and recorded their first demos while they were all still in high school. Shortly after, the band recorded and released its debut studio album, A Fever You Can't Sweat Out (2005). Made known by the top ten lead single "I Write Sins Not Tragedies", the album eventually was certified double platinum. The group then recorded its second album, Pretty. Odd., released in 2008. Marked as a drastic change in tone from their debut, it undersold commercial expectations and received a mixed response from fans and critics.
The band released its third album, entitled Vices & Virtues, on March 22, 2011. The record's first single, "The Ballad of Mona Lisa", was released February 1, 2011.
The band released their fourth studio album, Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die! on October 8, 2013. The record's first single, "Miss Jackson", was released on July 15, 2013.
Panic! at the Disco was formed in 2004 in the suburban area of Summerlin, Las Vegas, by childhood friends Ryan Ross, who sang and played guitar, and Spencer Smith, who played drums. They both attended Bishop Gorman High School, and they began playing music together in ninth grade. They invited friend Brent Wilson from nearby Palo Verde High School to join on bass, and Wilson invited classmate Brendon Urie to try out on guitar. The quartet soon began rehearsing in Smith's grandmother's living room. Urie grew up in a Mormon family in Las Vegas and early on skipped rehearsals to go to church. Ross initially was the lead vocalist for the group, but after hearing Urie sing back-up during rehearsals, the group decided to make him the lead. Initially, Panic! at the Disco was just a blink-182 cover band.
The monotonous nature of local Las Vegas bands influenced the members of the band to be different and creative, and they soon began laying down experimental demos. The band had not even performed a single live show when they were signed. "We never went out and played shows before we got signed because the music scene in Las Vegas is so bad. There's not a lot going on," Smith said. "In our practice space, there were something like 30 bands, and every day we'd walk into that room and hear the exact same death-metal bands. So it kind of influenced us to be different. And to get out of Las Vegas." Urie began working at Tropical Smoothie Cafe in Summerlin to afford rent for the band's new practice space. The four left their educations behind to concentrate on music; Ross had a falling out with his father when he dropped out of college, and when Brendon Urie dropped out of high school his parents kicked him out of the house. He stayed with friends until he could afford to rent an apartment.
Ross and Urie soon began to commit to their laptops the demos they had been developing, and posted three early demos ("Time to Dance," "Nails for Breakfast, Tacks for Snacks" and "Camisado") on PureVolume. On a whim, they sent a link to Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz via a LiveJournal account. Wentz, who was in Los Angeles at the time with the rest of Fall Out Boy working on their major-label debut, From Under the Cork Tree, drove down to Las Vegas to meet with the young, unsigned band. Upon hearing "two to three" songs during band practice, Wentz was impressed and immediately wanted the band to sign to his Fueled by Ramen imprint label Decaydance Records, which made them the first on the new label. Around December 2004, the group signed to the label. As news broke that Wentz had signed Panic! (who had yet to perform a single live show), fans on the Internet began to bash the group. "Almost right away we knew what was going to happen," Ross explained in a 2006 interview. "We had two songs online a nd people were already making assumptions on what kind of band we were and what we were going to sound like."
Meanwhile, Wentz began to hype the band wherever possible: from wearing "Pete! at the Disco" T-shirts onstage to mentioning them in interviews. Wentz gave a quick shout-out to the band during a press junket on the day before the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards: "I've got a couple of bands coming out soon on Decaydance, one being this band called Panic! at the Disco," Wentz said. "Their record is going to be your next favorite record. It's called A Fever You Can't Sweat Out — get it before your little brother does." At the time of their signing, all of the band members were still in high school (with the exception of Ross, who was forced to quit UNLV). Urie graduated in May 2005 and Wilson and Smith finished school online as the band left for College Park, Maryland to record their debut record.
The band relocated to College Park, Maryland to record their debut album from June–September 2005. Although they only had shells of songs when they arrived, the rest of the album shaped up fast through the marathon session. "We didn't have a day off in the five-and-a-half weeks we were there, 12 or 14 hours a day," Ross said in a 2005 interview. "We were making things up in our heads that weren't there, and on top of the stress of trying to finish the record, we were living in a one-bedroom apartment with four people on bunk beds," recalled Ross. "Everyone got on everybody's nerves. Someone would write a new part for a song and someone else would say they didn't like it just because you ate their cereal that morning."
The album is split into two halves: the first half is mostly electronic dance punk, while the second half features Vaudevillian piano, strings, and accordion. The band grew tired of writing only with drum machines and keyboards and, inspired by film scores (specifically the works of Danny Elfman and Jon Brion) decided to write a completely different half. "By the end of that, we were completely exhausted," said Ross of the studio sessions. After its completion, "we had two weeks to come home and learn how to be a band," Ross said. The group played their first live show during the summer of 2005 at local Las Vegas music venue The Alley on West Charleston. Afterwards, the band toured nationally on the Nintendo Fusion Tour with mentors Fall Out Boy, as well as Motion City Soundtrack, The Starting Line, and Boys Night Out for the rest of 2005.
Their debut album, A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, was released September 27, 2005. Sales began relatively slow. It debuted at No. 112 on the Billboard 200 album chart, No. 6 on the Billboard Independent Albums chart, and No. 1 on the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart, with nearly 10,000 albums sold in the first week of release. Within a span of four months, Panic! would see the video for their first single, "I Write Sins Not Tragedies", rocket up the Billboard Hot 100 as sales of Fever passed the 500,000 mark. At the end of March 2006, they announced their very own headlining tour. By August, their debut record was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and the music video for "I Write Sins, Not Tragedies" won Video of the Year at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards. "Some aspects of the fame are annoying, but at the end of the day it's something we're most grateful for. It's certainly opened the door to a whole new batch of opportunities," Ross said of the band's newfound fame and instant success.
In May 2006, Panic! at the Disco announced that original bassist Brent Wilson had left the band, "posting a statement that was both diplomatic and entirely inscrutable yet failing to mention any reason why Wilson is leaving Panic," according to MTV News. In June, Wilson asserted to MTV News that he was kicked out of the band via a phone call. "It was done as a phone call and the only person who spoke was Spencer. Apparently Brendon and Ryan were on the speakerphone too , but they didn't say a word. They never even said they were sorry," explained Wilson. Smith wrote a lengthy e-mail back to James Montgomery of MTV News, stating, in part, "We made the decision based on Brent's lack of responsibility and the fact that he wasn't progressing musically with the band," and revealed that Wilson did not write nor play any bass present on Fever: Instead, Urie recorded these parts. Wilson demanded a cut in royalties, and threatened to take his former band to court.
The band supported The Academy Is… on their worldwide The Ambitious Ones and Smoking Guns Tour from January to May 2006. Beginning in June, the group headlined their first unnamed national tour, that would last until August. During their performance at the 2006 Reading Festival in August, the band was greeted by excessive bottling, one of which hit Urie in the face that knocked him unconscious. Despite this, the band continued with their set after Urie recovered. The band's second headlining tour, dubbed the Nothing Rhymes with Circus Tour, began in November. In roughly one year, Panic! at the Disco went from being the opening act on a five-band bill to the headliners on a massive arena tour.
The Nothing Rhymes with Circus Tour debuted the band's highly theatrical and notable live show, which featured every song with dance numbers, skits and tricks performed by a six-member troupe, as the band donned intricate costumes, loosely re-enacting moments from the songs. Kelefa Sanneh of The New York Times noted the sudden success and circus-inspired tour of the young band in a concert review: "There’s something charming about watching a band trying to navigate sudden success, aided by a contortionist, a ribbon dancer and all the rest of it." The group, fresh off the major success of A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, took a break after non-stop touring and began formulating ideas for their next record together during the winter of 2006.
After a short period of development regarding the ideas of the album, on March 6, 2007 the band arrived at a cabin in the rural mountains of Mount Charleston, Nevada and began the writing process for the new album.After recording the new tracks and performing them live over the summer, the band returned to their native Las Vegas as well as their old rehearsal studio, where they wrote their debut record. The band grew uninterested in the songs previously written and by August scrapped the entire new album (which Ross later revealed was "three-quarters" done) and started over. "We wanted to approach these songs in the most basic form," Ross said. "We wrote them all on one acoustic guitar and with someone singing. I think that we kind of skipped that part of songwriting on the first record, and this time we're sort of paying attention to that. We've written a bunch of songs since we've been home Las Vegas. I think it's the most fun and the happiest we've been since we started." With simplicity the new focus and the old album shelved, the group settled in and began recording what would become Pretty. Odd. In October, the band entered the Studio at the Palms at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas to begin recording the album.
In January 2008, the band unveiled a new logo and dropped the exclamation point from their name, becoming Panic at the Disco, which soon caused outrage among the band's fanbase. Released on March 21, 2008, Pretty. Odd. was described by the band as "more organic and mellower" than A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, as well as unintentionally and coincidentally similar to music of The Beatles, in both songwriting and scope. The record debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 chart, with first-day sales of 54,000, and first-week sales of 139,000 copies in the United States. Those figures marked the band's biggest sales week to that date, beating a previous record held by A Fever You Can't Sweat Out (which sold 45,000 during the winter of 2006). The record also debuted at "Current Alternative Albums" chart and No. 2 on the "Digital Albums" chart, the latter of which accounted for 26 percent of the disc's overall sales. The album charted high in various other countries and was eventually certified gold in the United Kingdom, however, Pretty. Odd. received relatively disappointing sales in the face of its predecessor. Pretty. Odd. was, however, critically acclaimed in contrast to Fever: Barry Walters of Spin called Panic's debut album "embarrassing" while regarding the new record as "daring to be optimistically beautiful at a time when sadness and ugliness might have won them easier credibility."
The band announced plans to headline the 2008 Honda Civic Tour in January 2008, which took up the majority of early touring for the album. Motion City Soundtrack, The Hush Sound and Phantom Planet opened for the tour, which April 10 to July 14, 2008 across North America. Throughout October and November 2008, the band toured with Dashboard Confessional and The Cab on the Rock Band Live Tour promoting the video game Rock Band 2.
As expected and predicted by several music publications, the band adopted a very different style for the touring in support of Pretty. Odd., in contrast to the dark, circus-themed elements of their previous stage shows. Each show contained "woodsy set pieces, projections of flora and fauna, and mic stands wrapped in lights and flowers," and each band member dressed in a vest. While reflecting on the theatrical nature of A Fever You Can't Sweat Out touring, Urie commented "We did it and it was a lot of fun when we did it, but this time around I think we wanted to get back to a more intimate, personal setting, and scale it down a little bit." Ryan Ross explained that "It's more about connecting with the audience and seeing what's gonna happen every night. It's not as scripted out and pre-planned. It makes it more exciting for us, and less monotonous every night." A live album, ...Live in Chicago, based on live recordings from Chicago during the Honda Civic Tour, was released December 2, 2008. An accompanying DVD contains photos from the tour, each music video from the album as well as behind-the-scenes footage of the videos and the tour, the short film Panic! at the Disco In: American Valley, and the documentary feature based on the tour, All In A Day's.
Pretty. Odd.'s touring was also defined by a larger effort to remain environmentally conscious. On the tour, the band worked with two non-profit eco organizations: Reverb, which facilitates environmentally friendly touring; and Global Inheritance, which seeks to inspire more eco-activism. In a 2008 interview, Ross revealed that the band traveling on a biodiesel bus, to re-using plastics, and recycling more backstage. The band went as far as to print tour booklets on recycled paper, with soy ink, and organize an "eco-contest," in which profits from the tour went straight to environmental organizations. (Read More)
Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die! Review
"There probably are some people out there who don't like Panic! At The Disco but they must lead horrible, hollow lives. The rock crowd get all het up about them mostly on the strength of their debut 'A Fever You Can't Sweat Out' which was the soundtrack to many a sticky floored club around the middle of the last decade. Further afield, for every indier-than-thou numpty who thinks it's clever to giggle at their glittery jackets and vocal histrionics there's a fan who digs the Beatles-esque vibes of second record 'Pretty. Odd.'. Sure, it all got a bit fucking weird by the time third album 'Vices and Virtues' rolled around but there's still enough residual goodwill knocking about for the showboys from Las Vegas for 'Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die!' to be hotly anticipated.
Indeed, as the Hunter S Thompson pilfering title might warn of, there's plenty of Gambling City inspired glitz on show here as well as a little grime and grit. Opener 'This is Gospel' is a thumping, turbocharged anthem whose chorus smashes you in the face like an irate Bellagio bouncer. From there, the female-voiced hook of first single 'Miss Jackson' (courtesy of solo singer Lolo) takes us into more smouldering, sexual territory. It is, no doubt, reminiscent of some of Fall Out Boy's recent efforts but let's not forget that the Chicagoans half inched a hefty slice of Panic's theatrical schtick around the time of 'Infinity on High' so a little re-addressing of the balance isn't beyond forgiveness.
Elsewhere, a mid album trio of 'Girl That You Love', 'Nicotine' and 'Girls Girls Boys' see Brendon Urie back to his lyrically hedonistic best – the charge that imbued Panic's earliest work and which he so represented is back in full flow and it is filthily, wonderfully delicious. On this evidence Urie is the sort of bloke who could find you a party on a cold Tuesday night in Hull, let alone the wee hours of Saturday on the strip.
There's no shortage of musical sophistication here too. The layers of sound, electronics and orchestration which in various guises have become the band's calling card over the years all make an appearance but the overall emphasis is on cracking tunes that could cause a commotion on the dancefloor of any disco. This is the sound of a band who have re-discovered the party (the good bits, the bad bits, the seedy bits) and the result is that 'Too Weird...' is an album that pops and fizzes with excitement, vim and intent. Sure, not everyone loves loves Panic! at the Disco but with this record they look set to win over some new fans and impress the old ones all over again."
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Listen To Panic! At The Disco : Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die!
Who is Panic! At The Disco?
Panic! at the Disco (stylized for a time as Panic at the Disco) is an American rock band from Las Vegas, Nevada, formed in 2004. Since its inception, the band's line-up has included Brendon Urie (lead vocals, guitar, piano) and Spencer Smith (drums). Former touring bassist Dallon Weekes officially joined the band in 2012.
The band formed and recorded their first demos while they were all still in high school. Shortly after, the band recorded and released its debut studio album, A Fever You Can't Sweat Out (2005). Made known by the top ten lead single "I Write Sins Not Tragedies", the album eventually was certified double platinum. The group then recorded its second album, Pretty. Odd., released in 2008. Marked as a drastic change in tone from their debut, it undersold commercial expectations and received a mixed response from fans and critics.
The band released its third album, entitled Vices & Virtues, on March 22, 2011. The record's first single, "The Ballad of Mona Lisa", was released February 1, 2011.
The band released their fourth studio album, Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die! on October 8, 2013. The record's first single, "Miss Jackson", was released on July 15, 2013.
Panic! at the Disco was formed in 2004 in the suburban area of Summerlin, Las Vegas, by childhood friends Ryan Ross, who sang and played guitar, and Spencer Smith, who played drums. They both attended Bishop Gorman High School, and they began playing music together in ninth grade. They invited friend Brent Wilson from nearby Palo Verde High School to join on bass, and Wilson invited classmate Brendon Urie to try out on guitar. The quartet soon began rehearsing in Smith's grandmother's living room. Urie grew up in a Mormon family in Las Vegas and early on skipped rehearsals to go to church. Ross initially was the lead vocalist for the group, but after hearing Urie sing back-up during rehearsals, the group decided to make him the lead. Initially, Panic! at the Disco was just a blink-182 cover band.
The monotonous nature of local Las Vegas bands influenced the members of the band to be different and creative, and they soon began laying down experimental demos. The band had not even performed a single live show when they were signed. "We never went out and played shows before we got signed because the music scene in Las Vegas is so bad. There's not a lot going on," Smith said. "In our practice space, there were something like 30 bands, and every day we'd walk into that room and hear the exact same death-metal bands. So it kind of influenced us to be different. And to get out of Las Vegas." Urie began working at Tropical Smoothie Cafe in Summerlin to afford rent for the band's new practice space. The four left their educations behind to concentrate on music; Ross had a falling out with his father when he dropped out of college, and when Brendon Urie dropped out of high school his parents kicked him out of the house. He stayed with friends until he could afford to rent an apartment.
Ross and Urie soon began to commit to their laptops the demos they had been developing, and posted three early demos ("Time to Dance," "Nails for Breakfast, Tacks for Snacks" and "Camisado") on PureVolume. On a whim, they sent a link to Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz via a LiveJournal account. Wentz, who was in Los Angeles at the time with the rest of Fall Out Boy working on their major-label debut, From Under the Cork Tree, drove down to Las Vegas to meet with the young, unsigned band. Upon hearing "two to three" songs during band practice, Wentz was impressed and immediately wanted the band to sign to his Fueled by Ramen imprint label Decaydance Records, which made them the first on the new label. Around December 2004, the group signed to the label. As news broke that Wentz had signed Panic! (who had yet to perform a single live show), fans on the Internet began to bash the group. "Almost right away we knew what was going to happen," Ross explained in a 2006 interview. "We had two songs online a nd people were already making assumptions on what kind of band we were and what we were going to sound like."
Meanwhile, Wentz began to hype the band wherever possible: from wearing "Pete! at the Disco" T-shirts onstage to mentioning them in interviews. Wentz gave a quick shout-out to the band during a press junket on the day before the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards: "I've got a couple of bands coming out soon on Decaydance, one being this band called Panic! at the Disco," Wentz said. "Their record is going to be your next favorite record. It's called A Fever You Can't Sweat Out — get it before your little brother does." At the time of their signing, all of the band members were still in high school (with the exception of Ross, who was forced to quit UNLV). Urie graduated in May 2005 and Wilson and Smith finished school online as the band left for College Park, Maryland to record their debut record.
The band relocated to College Park, Maryland to record their debut album from June–September 2005. Although they only had shells of songs when they arrived, the rest of the album shaped up fast through the marathon session. "We didn't have a day off in the five-and-a-half weeks we were there, 12 or 14 hours a day," Ross said in a 2005 interview. "We were making things up in our heads that weren't there, and on top of the stress of trying to finish the record, we were living in a one-bedroom apartment with four people on bunk beds," recalled Ross. "Everyone got on everybody's nerves. Someone would write a new part for a song and someone else would say they didn't like it just because you ate their cereal that morning."
The album is split into two halves: the first half is mostly electronic dance punk, while the second half features Vaudevillian piano, strings, and accordion. The band grew tired of writing only with drum machines and keyboards and, inspired by film scores (specifically the works of Danny Elfman and Jon Brion) decided to write a completely different half. "By the end of that, we were completely exhausted," said Ross of the studio sessions. After its completion, "we had two weeks to come home and learn how to be a band," Ross said. The group played their first live show during the summer of 2005 at local Las Vegas music venue The Alley on West Charleston. Afterwards, the band toured nationally on the Nintendo Fusion Tour with mentors Fall Out Boy, as well as Motion City Soundtrack, The Starting Line, and Boys Night Out for the rest of 2005.
Their debut album, A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, was released September 27, 2005. Sales began relatively slow. It debuted at No. 112 on the Billboard 200 album chart, No. 6 on the Billboard Independent Albums chart, and No. 1 on the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart, with nearly 10,000 albums sold in the first week of release. Within a span of four months, Panic! would see the video for their first single, "I Write Sins Not Tragedies", rocket up the Billboard Hot 100 as sales of Fever passed the 500,000 mark. At the end of March 2006, they announced their very own headlining tour. By August, their debut record was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and the music video for "I Write Sins, Not Tragedies" won Video of the Year at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards. "Some aspects of the fame are annoying, but at the end of the day it's something we're most grateful for. It's certainly opened the door to a whole new batch of opportunities," Ross said of the band's newfound fame and instant success.
In May 2006, Panic! at the Disco announced that original bassist Brent Wilson had left the band, "posting a statement that was both diplomatic and entirely inscrutable yet failing to mention any reason why Wilson is leaving Panic," according to MTV News. In June, Wilson asserted to MTV News that he was kicked out of the band via a phone call. "It was done as a phone call and the only person who spoke was Spencer. Apparently Brendon and Ryan were on the speakerphone too , but they didn't say a word. They never even said they were sorry," explained Wilson. Smith wrote a lengthy e-mail back to James Montgomery of MTV News, stating, in part, "We made the decision based on Brent's lack of responsibility and the fact that he wasn't progressing musically with the band," and revealed that Wilson did not write nor play any bass present on Fever: Instead, Urie recorded these parts. Wilson demanded a cut in royalties, and threatened to take his former band to court.
The band supported The Academy Is… on their worldwide The Ambitious Ones and Smoking Guns Tour from January to May 2006. Beginning in June, the group headlined their first unnamed national tour, that would last until August. During their performance at the 2006 Reading Festival in August, the band was greeted by excessive bottling, one of which hit Urie in the face that knocked him unconscious. Despite this, the band continued with their set after Urie recovered. The band's second headlining tour, dubbed the Nothing Rhymes with Circus Tour, began in November. In roughly one year, Panic! at the Disco went from being the opening act on a five-band bill to the headliners on a massive arena tour.
The Nothing Rhymes with Circus Tour debuted the band's highly theatrical and notable live show, which featured every song with dance numbers, skits and tricks performed by a six-member troupe, as the band donned intricate costumes, loosely re-enacting moments from the songs. Kelefa Sanneh of The New York Times noted the sudden success and circus-inspired tour of the young band in a concert review: "There’s something charming about watching a band trying to navigate sudden success, aided by a contortionist, a ribbon dancer and all the rest of it." The group, fresh off the major success of A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, took a break after non-stop touring and began formulating ideas for their next record together during the winter of 2006.
After a short period of development regarding the ideas of the album, on March 6, 2007 the band arrived at a cabin in the rural mountains of Mount Charleston, Nevada and began the writing process for the new album.After recording the new tracks and performing them live over the summer, the band returned to their native Las Vegas as well as their old rehearsal studio, where they wrote their debut record. The band grew uninterested in the songs previously written and by August scrapped the entire new album (which Ross later revealed was "three-quarters" done) and started over. "We wanted to approach these songs in the most basic form," Ross said. "We wrote them all on one acoustic guitar and with someone singing. I think that we kind of skipped that part of songwriting on the first record, and this time we're sort of paying attention to that. We've written a bunch of songs since we've been home Las Vegas. I think it's the most fun and the happiest we've been since we started." With simplicity the new focus and the old album shelved, the group settled in and began recording what would become Pretty. Odd. In October, the band entered the Studio at the Palms at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas to begin recording the album.
In January 2008, the band unveiled a new logo and dropped the exclamation point from their name, becoming Panic at the Disco, which soon caused outrage among the band's fanbase. Released on March 21, 2008, Pretty. Odd. was described by the band as "more organic and mellower" than A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, as well as unintentionally and coincidentally similar to music of The Beatles, in both songwriting and scope. The record debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 chart, with first-day sales of 54,000, and first-week sales of 139,000 copies in the United States. Those figures marked the band's biggest sales week to that date, beating a previous record held by A Fever You Can't Sweat Out (which sold 45,000 during the winter of 2006). The record also debuted at "Current Alternative Albums" chart and No. 2 on the "Digital Albums" chart, the latter of which accounted for 26 percent of the disc's overall sales. The album charted high in various other countries and was eventually certified gold in the United Kingdom, however, Pretty. Odd. received relatively disappointing sales in the face of its predecessor. Pretty. Odd. was, however, critically acclaimed in contrast to Fever: Barry Walters of Spin called Panic's debut album "embarrassing" while regarding the new record as "daring to be optimistically beautiful at a time when sadness and ugliness might have won them easier credibility."
The band announced plans to headline the 2008 Honda Civic Tour in January 2008, which took up the majority of early touring for the album. Motion City Soundtrack, The Hush Sound and Phantom Planet opened for the tour, which April 10 to July 14, 2008 across North America. Throughout October and November 2008, the band toured with Dashboard Confessional and The Cab on the Rock Band Live Tour promoting the video game Rock Band 2.
As expected and predicted by several music publications, the band adopted a very different style for the touring in support of Pretty. Odd., in contrast to the dark, circus-themed elements of their previous stage shows. Each show contained "woodsy set pieces, projections of flora and fauna, and mic stands wrapped in lights and flowers," and each band member dressed in a vest. While reflecting on the theatrical nature of A Fever You Can't Sweat Out touring, Urie commented "We did it and it was a lot of fun when we did it, but this time around I think we wanted to get back to a more intimate, personal setting, and scale it down a little bit." Ryan Ross explained that "It's more about connecting with the audience and seeing what's gonna happen every night. It's not as scripted out and pre-planned. It makes it more exciting for us, and less monotonous every night." A live album, ...Live in Chicago, based on live recordings from Chicago during the Honda Civic Tour, was released December 2, 2008. An accompanying DVD contains photos from the tour, each music video from the album as well as behind-the-scenes footage of the videos and the tour, the short film Panic! at the Disco In: American Valley, and the documentary feature based on the tour, All In A Day's.
Pretty. Odd.'s touring was also defined by a larger effort to remain environmentally conscious. On the tour, the band worked with two non-profit eco organizations: Reverb, which facilitates environmentally friendly touring; and Global Inheritance, which seeks to inspire more eco-activism. In a 2008 interview, Ross revealed that the band traveling on a biodiesel bus, to re-using plastics, and recycling more backstage. The band went as far as to print tour booklets on recycled paper, with soy ink, and organize an "eco-contest," in which profits from the tour went straight to environmental organizations. (Read More)
Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die! Review
"There probably are some people out there who don't like Panic! At The Disco but they must lead horrible, hollow lives. The rock crowd get all het up about them mostly on the strength of their debut 'A Fever You Can't Sweat Out' which was the soundtrack to many a sticky floored club around the middle of the last decade. Further afield, for every indier-than-thou numpty who thinks it's clever to giggle at their glittery jackets and vocal histrionics there's a fan who digs the Beatles-esque vibes of second record 'Pretty. Odd.'. Sure, it all got a bit fucking weird by the time third album 'Vices and Virtues' rolled around but there's still enough residual goodwill knocking about for the showboys from Las Vegas for 'Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die!' to be hotly anticipated.
Indeed, as the Hunter S Thompson pilfering title might warn of, there's plenty of Gambling City inspired glitz on show here as well as a little grime and grit. Opener 'This is Gospel' is a thumping, turbocharged anthem whose chorus smashes you in the face like an irate Bellagio bouncer. From there, the female-voiced hook of first single 'Miss Jackson' (courtesy of solo singer Lolo) takes us into more smouldering, sexual territory. It is, no doubt, reminiscent of some of Fall Out Boy's recent efforts but let's not forget that the Chicagoans half inched a hefty slice of Panic's theatrical schtick around the time of 'Infinity on High' so a little re-addressing of the balance isn't beyond forgiveness.
Elsewhere, a mid album trio of 'Girl That You Love', 'Nicotine' and 'Girls Girls Boys' see Brendon Urie back to his lyrically hedonistic best – the charge that imbued Panic's earliest work and which he so represented is back in full flow and it is filthily, wonderfully delicious. On this evidence Urie is the sort of bloke who could find you a party on a cold Tuesday night in Hull, let alone the wee hours of Saturday on the strip.
There's no shortage of musical sophistication here too. The layers of sound, electronics and orchestration which in various guises have become the band's calling card over the years all make an appearance but the overall emphasis is on cracking tunes that could cause a commotion on the dancefloor of any disco. This is the sound of a band who have re-discovered the party (the good bits, the bad bits, the seedy bits) and the result is that 'Too Weird...' is an album that pops and fizzes with excitement, vim and intent. Sure, not everyone loves loves Panic! at the Disco but with this record they look set to win over some new fans and impress the old ones all over again."
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