A Picture with Books (+7)
by Shane Valdés – 2008

The audio version of … Live In Chicago has been on iTunes since December and now the store has finally added the video portion of the release to their catalogue. The concert — no extras! — is available in widescreen movie format with a running time of just over an hour and costs $9.99. Thanks to Michele for the tip.

For Panic at the Disco drummer Spencer Smith, Las Vegas will always be home. “It’s not a bad place to be in December, but it’s not t-shirt weather,” he laughs. “Right now, the tourism’s mellowed out because of the economy. The winters tend to be pretty popular, since it’s a vacation destination that won’t get snowed in. You don’t have to worry about missing your plane because the airport’s shutdown. There will always be people who want to gamble too, so Vegas is pretty good.”

It’s been good to the platinum-selling rockers as well, constantly offering a foundation for them to return to after a slew of energized and incendiary shows. One of those particular shows is captured vividly in the band’s recent CD/DVD combo release, Live In Chicago. It’s bombastic and vibrant, just like Panic is. Spencer sat down with ARTISTdirect.com to discuss his band’s latest release, touring and much more in this exclusive interview.

Live In Chicago really captures the immediacy of a Panic at the Disco show. It’s very in-the-moment.

We put a lot of effort into trying to make it that way. From watching other bands’ DVDs, we developed a style for this. One of our best friends, Shane, was filming everything on tour, and he was the head of filming in Chicago. Read the full article »

Panic At The Disco were sort of busy in 2008. They parted ways with a punctuation marker and arguably managed to shake the sophomore jinx, delivering the highly anticipated follow-up to 2005′s ridiculously huge breakthrough, A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out. Pretty. Odd. was described by at least one observer as “ignored by fans and critics alike,” but it seemed to do all right, garnering positive reviews from AP and a few of those competing magazines that shall remain nameless. It also spent more than four months on the Billboard chart and is currently certified gold. Not to mention, you can see (and hear) a whole swath of fans emphatically singing along to the material on both the compact disc and DVD portions of their new live package, the modestly titled …Live In Chicago.

Brian Shultz recently spoke with drummer Spencer Smith to talk about bizarre video featurettes, the politics of press, and how the band managed to hold out on a live offering despite exploding early on.

Have Panic been entertaining offers to do live albums for a few years now?
It was more just a band decision that at whatever point…”if you want to do it or not.,” We wanted to do something at some point, so we just decided to record it in Chicago. Read the full article »

From MySpace…

The audio from the new CD/DVD …Live In Chicago is available now on iTunes! Click here to check that out now!

And while you’re on iTunes, check out The Fueled By Ramen 2008 Year In Review to save $2 on Pretty. Odd. along with all the other FBR releases from 2008! This deal is only valid for two weeks so stop by iTunes soon!

Panic at the Disco is eyeing an early 2009 release date for its yet-untitled third album, a collection that was inspired by the massive tour the band mounted behind its sophomore effort, “Pretty. Odd.”

“I think when we wrote ‘Pretty. Odd.,’ it had more to do with the music we were just starting to get into after we were done touring,” bassist Jon Walker said in an interview with LiveDaily.

“With this, it’s a lot more about our real lives. When we were writing for ‘Pretty. Odd.,’ it was all overwhelming because we had just gotten off of a big tour off of our first album ['A Fever You Can't Sweat Out']. We didn’t really know what we wanted to do. I think even after ‘Pretty. Odd.’ was finished being recorded, we still were kind of unsure if that was exactly what we wanted to do. I think this time around–now that we’ve been writing and things have been going the way they have been–we’re a little bit more sure of ourselves this time around.” Read the full article »

Last week, Panic at the Disco released “…Live in Chicago” a CD/DVD capturing their live show and behind-the-scenes life on the band’s most recent tour. With the help of a photographer/filmmaker friend, the Las Vegas quartet also put together a book of Polaroids capturing their life on the road. As the band winds down for the holidays, Rock Daily talked with guitarist Ryan Ross about the last year and what fans can expect from Panic’s third album (hint: if you liked Pretty.Odd., you’re in luck), which Ross hopes to have out next summer.

How did the idea for the DVD and book come together?
Shane [Valdés, the filmmaker/photographer behind the project] is a friend of ours who lives with Brendan [Urie, singer] and we invited him on tour. At first he was filming and taking pictures, then he started getting into Polaroid film and we came up with the idea to do a tour diary of all Polaroid pictures. Read the full article »

These are from the standard edition of the CD/DVD found in most stores. The pictures from the booklet are some of the featured in the book, with the exception of a few live shots. The book’s pages have an old feel to them while the booklet’s shots are clear with a slight “dusty” look in some pages.

Here’s the first batch of captures from …Live in Chicago. The rest will be up soon.

Well, that’s it. According to FBR the book is sold out. The only option left is the standard edition, which can be found in most stores.