In recent years, pop punk fans have seen a bunch of Warped Tour-style festivals and attempted emo revivals come through the nation. There was Rockstar Disrupt Festival in 2019, The Maine’s Sad Summer Fest touring annually for the last 5+ years, the already classic yet two-year-old When We Were Young in Las Vegas, and many more. However, the team at idobi Radio have created one of the most unique and exciting cross country tours for this summer: the Summer School Tour. Featuring all independent artists, venues, and promoters, the lineup only adds to how cool and homegrown everything is.
The headliners for this summer tour are The Home Team, Stand Atlantic, Magnolia Park, and Scene Queen, and we have to say this: all of the emo bands here are currently proving themselves in the community. Not only that, but the festival operates so that every artist will headline a random date on the tour. This feels different than the rest of the pop punk tours and feats, because this one includes bands that are on the rise, but still have established fan bases. They are currently making it big, but are still hungry. It’s a thrilling balance for the acts and audience alike, because despite every one of these artists having been experiencing success, they are continuing to pushing themselves and draw us in.
Additionally, this touring festival is raising money for the non-profit called the Save The Music Foundation, which you can click here to learn more about. TLDR; for 25 years, Save The Music has worked toward funding and celebrating music, arts, and the equitable educational resources surrounding such in the United States.
We had the chance to chat with most of the headliners and discuss the exciting tour, its announcement and promo, and the empowered nature of it all; it was great. (The Idobi Summer School Tour is coming to Starland Ballroom tomorrow, Saturday, July 27.)
Magnolia Park
Magnolia Park is one of the most exciting bands in pop punk right now. They continuously drop cohesive yet insanely complex records. Not only are they talented, but they drop music extremely frequently (making the high quality of said music even more impressive). In March of 2023 we took some fantastic pictures of the band at their Gramercy show here in NYC. Photographer Angelo Natoli did a fantastic job and really helped capture glimpses of the band’s manic energy live.
We recently had the chance to catch up with Josh Roberts, as well, who is the band’s kind-hearted frontman. We discussed the band’s new single “Shallow”, their album last year Halloween Mixtape II, and of course, touring with all the amazing bands on the Summer School Tour.
The Summer School Tour is really fun! It’s been really cool getting to meet and hang out with the other artists; that has been really cool, especially since most of the other artists we’ve worked with or have played shows with before. It’s like a big friend reunion for us. Honestly, playing these shows… we’re playing another new song that’s not out yet while on Summer School and people are loving it. We’ve been very fortunate with everything we’ve been doing so far. Everyone here is a bunch of friends on tour just hanging out and playing songs.
Josh Roberts
The Home Team
The Home Team may have only exploded onto the scene in 2021 with Slow Bloom, but their most recent album, The Crucible of Life, feels like their crowning achievement to date. The band blends R&B, soul, emo, and post hardcore elements together seamlessly. It feels like a true experimentation and mesh of genres.
We had the chance to chat with the band for a recent interview. We talked about the new album and how the band continuously remains DIY with everything they do.
Summer School definitely feels like with our powers combined, and we are doing cool stuff! I’m really, really grateful for the other three headliners on this and the openers! I think it’s going to be a rocking tour. I honestly think the culture of the tour is going to be really healthy. I’m not trying to jinx anything! We’ve met everybody on the tour now. We know every single band and we know they’re all cool. I think it’s going to be such a chill tour. There’s a crew, too – one that is just part of the tour. I’m not used to that at all! I never got to play Warped Tour. I don’t know what it’s like to have people load and set up my gear for me. I just feel like it’s going to be fun!
Brian Butcher
We still don’t tour with a guitar tech – our crew is always as minimal as possible. We try to do as much of the work as we can. This is a new step up. We’re playing some really big rooms.
Daniel Matson
Butcher and Mason also explained to us how the tour came together, came along, and became what it is now: earnest emo acts playing for audiences and making new fans (and friends) coast to coast.
It was actually Stand Atlantic’s manager’s idea. They pitched the idea to us in January or February. It was pretty early in the year. I think it was a situation where all four bands were in the position of, “I will do this if it’s us four. I’m not going to be the first to agree and have the other three fall off and have three other bands hop on.” All four of us had to agree, so we were all talking saying like, “Hey, are you taking that Summer School offer? What’s the deal?” Everyone was like, “I will, if you will!” We ended up all doing it and landed on the same tour. Everyone is very psyched.
Daniel Matson
Stand Atlantic
We actually had the opportunity to listen to the new Stand Atlantic album early, and trust us when we say that it is one of the best pop punk records all year. We wrote an extremely glowing review of the piece in which I analyzed the masterpiece (which is set to drop August 23). Check out a quote from the review:
WAS HERE by Stand Atlantic is the definition of a band exploring new territories with their sound and succeeding at every turn. Pop punk purists may disavow it, but hardcore fans will defend it and the band will reach new heights. This one just incorporates everything that makes the band great in the first place, while also sounding like a whole new ground. Normally in a review we’d list some highlight tracks, but every single song is a highlight.
Valentino Petrarca
Not only was a review of the album needed, but last year in support of Sad Summer Festival, we also had the chance to chat with Bonnie, their vocalist. We discussed the lead single of the record “Kill(Her)” and touring with Taking Back Sunday. Below is a highlight from the interview in which Bonnie discusses the pressure of playing live now that the band’s already established themselves.
There’s way less pressure when you’re starting out, I feel like you can just be like, ‘This is who we are. Fuck it. Let’s go,’ and win people over. Whereas now it’s like, ‘Let’s keep doing good and push the bar every time,’ so you have to keep one-upping yourself. Even to this day when we did the tour with Pierce the Veil and I Prevail, we had the mindset of, ‘These are not our fans whatsoever.’ It made us go back to our roots and have to win these people over again. It was kind of refreshing and nice. When you’re doing headlines and you play shows, you know people are there to see you. You don’t really have to work as hard to get their approval because like, ‘Y’all bought tickets!’ You can kind of just do whatever. When you’re on an opening slot, it’s different. It was nice to have that refreshing outlook again and work for the new fans.
Bonnie Fraser
Scene Queen
Although The Aquarian has not yet had the chance to interview Scene Queen, her reign of bimbo-core is unrivaled. Bimbo-Core, what started out as a cheeky way to describe her music, has transformed into a full blown phenomenon in the music industry. The most notably skillful aspect about her is the incredibly clever and sharp lyricism. She frequently plays with words and double entendres. Scene Queen’s music tackles everything from predatory behavior in the pop punk genre in the track “18+” to the feeling of loss and longing on her track “Climax”.
She may only have one record out currently, but she has over 800,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, she is earning festival slots on massive rock stages like Sick New World, and is collaborating with classic punk names like Set It Off and new rockers like WARGASM (UK). Scene Queen is definitely the heaviest leaning artist on this bill, too, so for fans who may not have heard of her or more metal-loving people, definitely check out her debut album Hot Singles In Your Area.
Overall iDobi Radio’s Summer School Tour has all the new and emerging artists of the genre here to showcase their diverse talents and entertain any fan of pop punk.
VISIT THE SUMMER SCHOOL TOUR WEBSITE BY CLICKING HERE AND FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE BANDS, DATES, CHARITIES, AND BEING AN EMO FAN IN 2024!
