#spring08

The mic-sharing was obviously a huge hit with the crowds & fans in 2006. Then the Pretty. Odd. era got going in early 2008, and by that spring more & more fans were complaining online about the "lack of Ryden moments" in the new era. I didn't think it was a coincidence that Brendon & Ryan majorly stepped up their stage routine shortly after that.

So the band had already done the international tour earlier that spring and were about a month into the Honda Civic Tour when they added three specific mic-sharing moments that they continued doing for the next several months. There had been a tiny bit of random mic-sharing attempted prior to that point, but there was absolutely a VERY noticeable change around the second week of May where Ryan was now routinely walking over to Brendon's mic at the same parts. Here's what the evolution of those specific moments looked like:

Behind The Sea:

That Green Gentleman:

Mad As Rabbits:

side tangent: a friend was telling me that they saw some kids currently implying something negative about Brendon because there are so many pics of him super close to Ryan and singing into his ear during the Pretty. Odd. era or something, which is hilarious to me because that close proximity would be the logical result of Ryan walking over to someone and sticking his head between their mouth & mic... like what are you expecting lol. Ryan was the one who moved over to Brendon's mic! He had so much agency & power onstage in 2008 and was absolutely not a meek pushover. So before anyone claims that Ryan was forced into walking over to Brendon during those clearly rehearsed parts, here are a few random different moments where Ryan still chose to walk over & get up in Brendon's space:

This official Pretty. Odd. shirt designed by Chris Rushing was available on FBR's webstore and Hot Topic. I remember it showing up around the time that things were rapidly happening at the end of January, so I'm pretty sure its arrival coincided with the release of the NITA single. Both places offered you a free download of that song when you bought the shirt.

Chris originally designed the shirt to look like this:

But it was printed on black instead. He said that Panic's management gave him some themes for inspiration, which mostly sounded like the same things that we'd been hearing had inspired the second album (with the addition of James and the Giant Peach): Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, and the Beatles.

speaking of James and the Giant Peach... the peach theme continued later that spring with the addition of these other official shirts to the webstore:

So it's not like the band shared stuff with us back then that we're all hiding now, I promise... there's really nothing to "dig up." The videos you're talking about were popular in spring 2008 because they were part of the PATD marathon that Fuse aired on March 22nd leading up to the release of PO. That marathon included versions of Live in Denver, the making of NITA, and The Making of Pretty. Odd. that were abbreviated & edited down to fit a time slot (ex: the 3 clips on Pretty. Odd. were less than 7 min each). The Pretty. Odd. clips were the same thing as the documentary on the dvd in the deluxe box set, which is also known as "Calendar Business" (youtube is a butthead but you can watch it on vimeo). The videos you're referring to were literally just a chopped-up version of that:

this official shirt was one of the earlier Pretty. Odd. shirts we saw (it was added to the webstore in February before the album came out). it's supposed to be a collage of a lot of references from the album's lyrics.

this next pic of a yellow girl's fit was from a German fan shop's listing: