a Los Angeles-based adventure since 2013

so I’ve been seeing posts & videos that seem to combine the summer 2006 tour with the Nothing Rhymes With Circus arena tour at the end of the year as though they’re the same thing. they were for the same album but had totally different costumes, makeup, stage design (and size), dancers, support bands, scripts, and… well they were just completely different productions. you get it. 

these two tours were both iconic works of freaking art & deserve some major individual appreciation so let me just break them down and we can get nostalgic about something we’ll never ever see….

JUNE & JULY 2006:

Their first national headlining tour (not an arena tour) was in June & July 2006 when Spencer was 18, Ryan & Brendon were 19, and Jon was 20.

The stage had the giant moon and Moulin-Rouge-type windmill since they were hugely inspired by that movie & soundtrack. The band filmed their show in Denver and then turned it into the Live in Denver dvd for the AFYCSO box set that had the same “1920s Moulin Rouge” theme as this tour. (x) 

Panic! did a costume change halfway through each show so the main outfits for this summer were:

Jon also had a random blue shirt for the first half of some shows, but for the most part this summer followed a red/white/black theme with some GORGEOUS floral detail going on in some pieces. Brendon also had that amazing black coat with gold buttons to go with the shirt on the left:

Right after this tour the band went back to a simplified all-black or black & white look with the occasional blazers, so these costumes were mostly for that summer (except the rose vest showed up on their fall European tour). The ryhawk disappeared by the end of August, though.

Panic! had used the Lucent Dossier Vaudeville Cirque (their name at the time) for the I Write Sins Not Tragedies video and then brought them along for this summer tour:

And then the opening bands for most of this tour were The Hush Sound & The Dresden Dolls but Ok Go and some other bands were there for a bit too.

NOVEMBER & DECEMBER 2006:

During their 2006 fall European tour Ryan said that their next national tour at the end of the year was “going to be our biggest tour we’ve ever done. We’re planning a lot of production on that tour. We have a drum riser that’s gonna be like 8 feet tall and look like a carousel… and then we got like 6 performers coming out… It’s just gonna be a big show and something we haven’t seen a band do.” (x)

The Nothing Rhymes With Circus tour was a Very Big Deal™ and is the one that Rolling Stone shadowed the guys during for their 2007 cover article. This was Panic!’s first headlining arena tour and went for most of November & early December. Brendon and Spencer were 19, Ryan was 20, and Jon was 21.

So this theatrical tour is where we get several versions of the puppet makeup & incredible costumes styled by Anthony Franco:

The band brought in a few elements from other tours (like their light-up name, white piano, and Brendon’s choreography in There’s A Good Reason), but most stuff was completely different. The much bigger stage was like a massive circus tent with Spencer, Eric, and Bartram up on risers:

“A Cirque du Soleil fanatic, Ross has seen three of their shows and says the costumes and sets on his band’s Nothing Rhymes with Circus Tour – a three-ring rock spectacle featuring contortionists and stilt-walkers – were inspired by the new Cirque Beatles production, Love.

… ‘I was always more impressed by Vegas shows than by any rock band I saw,’ Ross says. ‘Just the super over-the-top-ness of it all. I wanted to incorporate that into our concerts – to make it more than T-shirts-and-jeans.’”

– Ryan to Blender in early 2007 after the tour ended

I LOVE THAT THIS FOOTAGE EXISTS

and then @blurintofocus who recorded this said on her livejournal:

They were clearly happy to be home; Ryan was almost chipper, to the point of actually smiling unprompted. The whole show was just…really good. I’m so glad we decided to do the Vegas show.

Pete ended up leaning against the stage by himself watching. When Brendon did the grinding up on Ryan thing during I Write Sins Ryan turned to Pete after and grinned and said, “Did you like that?” (x)

and here’s Brendon making faces at Pete:

This game and the promise behind the funding of it for creating a gaming company means the world to me.

thousands of men enter your life. they are just belts.

nothing is clandestine. the bathearts hear your secrets and carry them with you wherever they go.

wrds dnt hv vwls anmr nd nvr wll agn

ryland and alex are the latest to enter the basement. it isn’t actually warmer there, they are never heard from again.

panic at the disco wear makeup, you wear makeup. panic at the disco wear waistcoats, you wear waistcoats. panic at the disco is slowly disappearing, you are already half gone. 

the exclamation point is inside you. it curls into a question mark, asking should it stay. you don’t know if you like it or not.

frank iero lives inside a tulip on your windowsill. he is so small but he thinks he is big. you fear you will crush him one day.

the cab is only alexes. it is a legion of alexes. you will assimilate. you are alex.

the stage itself is gay

words mysteriously appear on your throat in handwriting that is not yours. you are not a gazelle, but you will become one soon

gabe saporta and greta salpeter are dating. you dont understand why.

ur sidekick keyboard opens. from that another flips open, an endless staircase of keyboards. ur fingers are 2 sad to type any.

“brother noooooo!” you scream, waking from a nightmare in a cold sweat, a knife sticking out of ur chest.

it is raining and you are shivering. dyw does not invite you inside. you will die unloved and your work will die with you.

you drop brent off at home. he disappears from ur sight. u go to the door. his mom says brent has been dead for 80 yrs.

you are william beckett’s secret child. you never knew.

the year is 2006. 2006 was 10 years ago. the year is 2006. 2006 was 80 years ago. the year is 2006. 2006 was 200 years ago.

when u were a young boy ur father took u into the city to see a marching band

These are warrior shields from the Wahgi people of Papua New Guinea. The warriors paint them with imagery meant to symbolize animals who have traits they wish to embody in battle. These depictions are intended to give the person using it the powers of what they’re depicting.

Now. Look at this Wahgi shield:

Hmm. That looks a bit different from the others.

That looks VERY different. Why, it looks like

The Phantom… American comic book character by Lee Falk. And that’s because it is.

The Wahgi people were isolated from the rest of the “modern” world until 1933. They came into contact with WWII service men who shared some aspects of western culture with the tribesmen. In particular, they showed them the comic books they read while shipped out. The Wahgi loved them. In particular, the Wahgi adored the stories of the Phantom, who wasn’t even particularly popular in its home of America.

He is so popular that the few Wahgi who can read english will read the comics out loud in the village center and hold out the pages for everyone to see, so the whole tripe can enjoy them and marvel at the Phantom’s might in battle.

They identify with the Phantom because he came from a jungle territory, like them, wore a mask to fight, like them, and came from a long line of warriors, which the Wahgi, who worshiped their ancestors, deeply respected. Further, despite not really having superpowers, the Phantom is strong, clever, and incredibly fast. He was so fast that his enemies began to believe that he was impervious to bullets and could not be killed.

Therefore, the Wahgi began painting HIM on their shields to invoke HIS abilities in battle. There are TONS of Phantom-Wahgi shields out there.