Kids Rock The Vote: KIDS ROCK THE VOTE AT THE ROCK BAND LIVE TOUR CONCERT

Hey! Wes here. I don't even know where to start except to say that the Rock Band Live Tour concert was AWESOME! The guys from The Cab, The Plain White T's, Dashboard Confessional and Panic at the Disco were so nice to us, not to mention that they put on an amazing show. It was so much fun. So here's what happened:

First, we met the guys from The Cab in their dressing room backstage at the E Center. Cash Colligan was really nice and offered to film a Rock The Vote public service announcement (or PSA) with us for high schools to upload and play on their school TV stations to remind first-time voters to go to the polls. Then, the other guys joined in and we ended up taping TWO PSA's, which was good because of what happened later with the Plain White T's. But, anyway, the guys from The Cab were awesomely cool and we had a great time hanging out with them.

Here's a picture of all of us in The Cab's dressing room before the show. Cash is the cool dude in the back flashing the peace sign. Alex Marshall is almost totally hidden by Jonah (wha?) and Alex Deleon and Alex Johnson are hanging on the right. Ian was very busy and important on the computer and somehow managed to escape the pic. And, yeah, three of the five guys in The Cab are named Alex. Hmmm...

So that was amazing, but then it got even better. We all got to go inside the E Center again for a special meet and greet with ALL of the bands. Yep, you heard me. ALL OF THE BANDS! It was so tight we couldn't even believe it. Only twenty-five people were invited to the meet and greet so we felt special. Here are some pics of the Kids Rock The Vote gang from the meet and greet:

The pic to the left is Hannah, Sarah Z, Jonah, Will and Me (behind Will) with the guys from Panic at the Disco.

Above right is Sarah K with all of the members of Dashboard Confessional.

To the left are Hannah and Sarah Z hanging out with the Plain White T's.

Below is Sarah Z with Chris Carabba, the lead singer for Dashboard Confessional.

To the left is Hannah with Chris Carrabba (he totally liked the girls more than us guys).

Below is Sean with our buds from The Cab.

During the meet and greet, we gave all of the guys Rock the Vote buttons and talked to them about Kids Rock The Vote. We were excited when several of the guys wore their Rock the Vote buttons on stage.

So after the meet and greet, I don't know what everybody else did but Sean and I played flip the penny for a long time while we waited for the doors to open for the concert.

Finally, they opened the door for the concert and we went to the Plain White T's merchandise table where we were planning to meet the PWT's again to film a Kids Rock The Vote PSA. One problem: They stopped my mom at the door and wouldn't let her take her video camera inside the center. Yeah. So, no Get Out The Vote PSA with the Plain White T's. That was a huge bummer.

But, anyway, the guys with the Plain White T's were really cool about the whole thing. They talked to us and let us take pics with them again.

So after we hung out with the PWT's, we went to go play ROCK BAND 2! Woot! It was so much fun. They had a competition where people could compete to play RB2 onstage during the concert, so we decided to do it. Jonah is awesome on the guitar, but he didn't want to miss the concert waiting in line to compete, so I stood in for him in the second practice round and it was so sweet! We scored 260,000 in the practice round and we were pretty sure that Will (who got 98% on vocals), Sean (88% on drums), Jonah (who didn't finish his practice round because the electricity went out) and Sarah (96% on HARD on bass) would get over 300,000 in the competition round and get up on stage.

But they finally got up to compete and THEN they told us that Sean was too young to play (you had to be 13). You'd think they'd tell you that BEFORE you miss 30 minutes of the concert. Anyway, yeah, so we didn't get to compete. But our practice round score even without Jonah was higher than all but one of the four groups who got to play onstage during the concert. Annoying....

The good news is that when we finally got in for the concert, it totally rocked! Our seats were right off the stage, beside where the bands walked up and down the steps to the stage.
So, in the pic above Shawn and I are rockin out to Dashboard Confessional. We were stoked when Brandon Urie from Panic at the Disco opened their set with a shout out to remind everyone in the audience (who's old enough, of course) to vote. So that was cool. In the pic below on the right, I'm lovin Panic At The Disco. In the pic on the left and lower right, Sarah, Hannah, Sarah, Will and Jonah are rockin and candling with the PWT's. The concert was AWESOME!