Saturday night Pop’s Nightclub in Sauget, IL was packed for the inaugural idobi Radio Summer School tour with a debut lineup of Stand Atlantic, Scene Queen, The Home team, Magnolia Park, Honey Revenge, and Letdown.

The Summer School Tour was founded by Eric Tobin (Hopeless Records), Michael Kaminsky (KMGMT), and Kevin Lyman (Warped Tour). The tour was put together as a response bringing back the culture and community that was lost between COVID and the end of Vans Warped Tour. The Home Team’s Brian Butcher echoed this during their set saying that the Summer School Tour is working on bringing back the culture and community that had been lost over the past few years.

The night got kicked off with Chicago/Nashville-based rocker Blake Coddington and his band Letdown.. This was the second time this year seeing the band. Coddington even acknowledged playing Point Fest earlier this year stating it was probably the hottest show he has ever played. Coddington started out putting out music during the pandemic and has grown a large following since.

Next up was the Los Angeles pop rock duo Honey Revenge consisting of lead vocalist Devin Papadol and guitarist Donovan Lloyd. At one point in the set front woman Devin Papadol went out into the crowd and sang. Near the end of the set Papadol said she had one question to ask the crowd and that was “Where are my Airheads?” before kicking into their most streamed song to date ‘Airheads’ off

The first of the four headline acts was Magnolia Park. The Orlando, Florida pop punk band is lead vocalist Joshua Roberts, guitarists Tristan Torres and Freddie Criales, bassist Jared Kay, and drummer  Joe Horsham. At one point in the set guitarist Tristan Torres told the crowd that he wanted to see a conga line, and sure enough one formed and snaked around in the crowd until it fell apart into a mosh pit. The band also had a few other surprises with having one of the merch guys named Steve come out and sing on a song with the band and also bringing out Honey Revenge lead singer Devin Papadol for ‘Unholy Heart‘.

An inflatable Elephant and something that looked like a cross between a large mouse and Grimace came out on stage before the band literally jumped into ‘Brag’ off their new album ‘The Crucible Of Life‘. The Seattle, WA, 4-piece pop-punk/pop-rock consists of Brian Butcher (vocals), John Baran (guitar), Ryne Olson (bass), and Daniel Matson (drums). The crowd really started to get into the show by this point in the night with several crowd surfers throughout the bands set.

Scene Queen came out to a rendition of Aqua’s ‘Barbie Girl’ and started the night with ‘Pink Push-Up Bra‘. Scene Queen is known for coining the style “bimbocore”, a subgenre of metalcore with feminist theme. During ‘18+’ she jumped off stage and sang from the barricade briefly. She also talked about how even though this is her first time playing St. Louis that the venue was special to her. She said that before the show she went for a run around the venue and noticed the three strip clubs near by and that she used to strip at a strip club called Diamonds and coincidently that is the name of the strip club next door. She joked that she might be doing a secod set next door if her merch sales were not that good. She then played a new song called ‘Whips and Chains‘. During ‘Barbie &Ken‘ Scene Queen brought out her boyfriend Joey Fleming of the band In Her Own Words to sing the part of Ken.

The night was closed out by Sydney, Australia pop punk band Stand Atlantic. The band consists of vocalist/guitarist Bonnie Fraser, guitarist David Potter, bassist Miki Rich, and drummer Jonno Panichi kicked things off with ‘WARZ0NE‘ off their “Was Here” that will be relesed on August 23rd. The set was fille dwith several songs off the new album including ‘CRIMINAL‘, ‘GIRL$‘, ‘LOVE U ANYWAY‘, and ‘kill[h]er’. Front woman Bonnie Fraser at one point in the set told the crowd to all get down and every single person in the crowd got down. As the music started to gain momentum Fraser yelled jump and the place erupted. The band closed the night with ‘deathwish‘.

I hope to see idobi Radio Summer School tour come back again year after year and grow like Warped Tour did in the past as it was a great way to discover new bands that you might not have heard of otherwise and with the absence of Warped Tour this could be a perfect fit.