In the 2008 rom-com The House Bunny, All-American Rejects frontman Tyson Ritter played the love interest of quirky sorority girl Emma Stone, and their song "I Wanna" was featured on the soundtrack. Most of the movie takes place on a college campus, and the band have been revisiting this setting lately with their House Party Tour — which, yes, is exactly what it sounds like.
AAR will be playing a bunch of festivals this summer, as well as stadium gigs with the Jonas Brothers come August, but they're currently keeping things intimate by urging fans to request they crash a house party in their cities. This all began at the end of April, when the band crashed a teenage cover band's backyard show in Southern California. Over the last week or so, they've made pop-up appearances in Green Bay, Chicago, Minneapolis and Columbia.
At their most recent performance, they played on the front lawn of a Columbia College frat house before the party got shut down by the cops. ("Move along," they said.) Footage from the show is going viral, as tender millennial hearts everywhere weep longingly for the return of house party culture. All-American Rejects do feel like a late-aughts nostalgia act at this point — although they are notably still releasing new music, with latest track "Easy Come, Easy Go" due June 5 — and this is a pretty clever way to lean in while connecting with new audiences.
As per Ritter's most recent TikTok post, the band will be playing somewhere in Nashville tonight, but have yet to announce where. It's not too late to volunteer your yard! (Ha, imagine having a yard?) It's unclear as of yet whether this tour could have the potential to trickle across the border, but there's no harm in putting in a request regardless.