Fall Out Boy: You met them on the Net, now catch them live

"The Black Clouds and Underdogs Tour," playing Saturday at the T-Dome, is headlined by two acts that represent a whole new trend in pop music. Both Fall Out Boy and Hawthorne Heights made it big via MySpace.com, the Web site that's immensely popular among young people, especially music lovers. Radio and video outlets eventually caught on to the bands, and are featuring them now, but that happened only after they'd made huge gains on the Internet.

Fall Out Boy's hard-charging, passionate, irresistibly catchy single, "Sugar, We're Going Down," is a staple of rock radio and is high on the charts, but it peaked on MySpace and other Internet sites — including the band's Web site — almost a year ago. "From Under the Cork Tree," the album that yielded the single, as well as another current hit, "Dance, Dance," has sold 2 million copies and is still in the Top Ten of the Billboard 200 album list after 46 weeks on the chart.

Last month in Rolling Stone, Fall Out Boy was featured in a fashion spread, a sure sign that a band has arrived. The article says FOB has found "800,000 friends on MySpace."

Following their fellow Chicago-based band's example, Hawthorne Heights (originally from Dayton, Ohio) depended even more on MySpace and other Internet sites, building practically their whole thriving career online. With very little radio and video support, Hawthorne Heights has a Top 20 album, "If Only You Were Lonely," and a modern-rock hit single, "Saying Sorry." The album that preceded the current one, called "The Silence in Black and White," sold a million copies and has been on the Billboard 200 chart for 65 weeks, with almost no radio or video support.

According to an article on the band in the current Rolling Stone, 2.6 million people have viewed its MySpace profile and almost 1.8 million have played its song, "Ohio Is for Lovers."

In addition to keeping in touch with fans via the Internet, both bands also maintain busy touring schedules and host autograph sessions with fans after every show.

Those personal contacts, online and on tour, show that rock radio doesn't have the clout it once had. More and more, fans are finding music on the Web rather than on the radio.

Concert preview


"The Black Clouds and Underdogs Tour": Fall Out Boy, Hawthorne Heights, the All-American Rejects, From First to Last, the Hush Sound, 7 p.m. Saturday, Tacoma Dome; $28-$30 (206-628-0888, www.ticketmaster.com; information: 253-272-3663, www.tacomadome.org, www.falloutboyrock.com).

Another band on the T-Dome bill, From First to Last, was partially formed via MySpace, when guitarist Matt Good hooked up on the site with vocalist Sonny Moore, who was only 15 when he joined the Florida-based band halfway through the recording of its debut album on Epitaph, "Dear Diary, My Teen Angst Has a Body Count," some three years ago.

The band also has an extensive online community. According to the April issue of Alternative Press magazine, it had 265,731 "friends" on its MySpace page. Good and Moore have more than 32,000 on their personal pages. The band recently released its second album, "Heroine." The first single from it, "The Latest Plague," is getting some airplay on modern-rock radio.

Also on the bill are the All-American Rejects, a band that did it the old-fashioned way — became stars through traditional radio and video outlets, starting with the release of their major-label debut on DreamWorks Records in 2003, the same year the photogenic foursome had its Rolling Stone fashion spread. The Rejects have two hot singles on the charts, "Dirty Little Secret" and "Move Along."

Rounding out the bill is another Chicago band, the Hush Sound.

Patrick MacDonald: 206-464-2312 or pmacdonald@seattletimes.com