I was planning on starting this article by saying something pretentious, to the effect of “I remember seeing the Maine back in 2007 on Warped when no one knew or cared who they were. And I had to walk in the snow to get to their stage, despite it being the middle of August and the tour being in Miami or Phoenix that day.” Or something. Then I thought to myself, “Wait, I did see them while they and I were on the tour, didn’t I?” And while trying to quickly research this to verify my claim, it seems their existence on the ’07 Warped Tour has been completely erased from the Internet’s collective memory. But it definitely happened. I definitely saw the Maine play in some godforsaken dirt field in the boondocks of like, Idaho or somesuch. But … the point of this is to say that they’ve come a long way in those three years, and I give a lot of credit to bands that have paid their dues, as opposed to the prepackaged media stars that seem to populate this scene right now. Even more credit is to be given for the fact that their brand of emo-pop is actually palatable on top of all that and doesn’t fall into the some of the more common clichés. Also along to open up these shows are This Century, who I’ve grown to like quite a bit in the few short hours between starting this week’s column and getting to this point in writing. Much in the same musical vein as the Maine, the Tempe-bred foursome write sing-along pop jams that are girlfriend-friendly, but still feel like you’re listening to a grownup band. - Brien Overly