Photos and words by Sam Reed

To say that Hot Topic's AP Tour was highly anticipated throughout the cities it is making stops through is an understatement. This tour is stacked with the perfect amount of nostalgia and emotions to appeal to a wide array of people. I was lucky enough to catch this tour twice, once in Buffalo, NY as a fan, and another time in Toronto, ON to take photos.

I spent weeks preparing myself for the slew of emotions that were to be felt the night of the tour. The night started out with As It Is, a pop-punk band hailing from Brighton, England. Numerous fans were spotted proudly rocking the bands merch, and the anticipation could be seen in their eyes when the lights went down before their entrance. They opened the night to an almost full venue, and they were an amazing and energetic start to the night. The band brought eight songs worth of energy to the crowd and they loved every minute of it. Vocalist, Patty Walters, put on a killer performance, playing to the audience and finger pointing right back at them throughout the bands most popular songs “Concrete” and “Dialtones”. Their set was the ideal start to the tour, getting the crowd warmed-up for the bands to come.

Next on was This Wild Life, a bit of a different tone than the other bands on the bill, but just as packed with raw emotion. Being that they are an acoustic pop-punk act, their set did not have the energy that the other bands had, but the crowd was just as engaged. Fans all over were caught singing along to the highly emotional lyrics, and many (myself included) were even moved to the point of tears. Their set list was one that was appealing to all of their fans, including a wide array of songs, and not forgetting their highly popular cover of Bring Me The Horizon's “Sleepwalking”. The highlight of the night was easily the moment in which vocalist, Kevin Jordan, asked the house to bring down all the lights and had the audience members bring out their cell phones. The light of the phones alone lit up the entire venue up in breath-taking glow and only added to the intimacy of their set. Despite being played in massive venues, you truly felt like they were playing only for you. They closed their set out with their ever popular tune “Concrete” and the audience enjoyed the sing-a-long that came with that. Overall, their set was a calm in the slew of dancey and angsty music the rest of the night had to offer.

One of my own highlights of the show was Real Friends set. This pop-punk act from Chicago, the self proclaimed “Illinois sad boys” never disappoints on an emotional and uplifting level. The band has a way of bringing out raw emotion, in an upbeat way that the crowd loves. This was one of the rowdiest sets of the night, with a massive push pit forming in the center of the room which stayed alive and active throughout the entire set. They performed eleven songs both old and new, appealing to all of the fans attending. As always, these sad boys played like they'd never played before. Real Friends have this charm to them, they're the guys next door that make you feel comfortable in your own skin, and their set accurately portrayed that. Dan Lambton, the vocalist of the band, even went so far to make show-goers comfortable as to make a speech halfway through their set about accepting one another and looking past our differences as people. Much like This Wild Life's set, Real Friends set oozed of pure emotion and brought numerous fans to tears, but you wouldn't know that if you were watching from afar as all you could see was fans in the push pit throwing up their angsty fingers and crowd surfers being thrown into the air. The set ended with “Summer” one of the band's singles off their newest album, ending their set on an emotional high point and leaving the crowd wanting more. Chants of “one more song” filled their air, but it was onto the headliner, who were promised to steal the show.

Mayday Parade was placed as the headliner of the AP Tour, and with great purpose. Mayday has been a band for ten years now, and it draws to an incredibly wide audience. The band holds so much nostalgia for the band's older fans such as myself, but it also offers hope for the younger generation of fans. They acknowledged both sets of fans with their set list, opening the set with a new song "One of Them Will Destroy the Other" and closing the encore with one of their most popular older songs “Jersey”. The band was just as great and alive as they were when I was sixteen and the audience was very receptive to their lively performance. The lighting and stage set-up was visually intriguing and drew focus on the stage at all times. Crowd surfers could be seen flying over the audience at all points throughout their set, giving the security a run for their money. The real crowd pleaser and one of the most emotional moments of their set was when they sang an old tune, “Miserable at Best”. The band played the emotionally reeling song and for the last few bars of the song vocalist, Derek Sanders, left the stage leaving the crowd singing the last few lines of the song alone. It was a moment that left chills on the spines of audience members and also left them screaming for an encore. They closed out the night with “Jersey”, a fan favorite, and after the entire set you could see a smile on the face of every fan that walked out of the venue.

The night was filled with emotional highs and lows and Hot Topic and Alternative Press really did throw together a bill that could be enjoyed by people all over. Fans left the venue sweatier and happier than they walked in and I can not sing my praises of this tour quite enough.