All Around the World

I bet this is one of the those things where if you care, you already know, but if you can bear to read further: the Jonas Brothers announced the dates for their upcoming World tour yesterday.

I was sure Disney would save the coveted opening act slot for their next attempt to clone Miley Cyrus, but I guess they're willing to hire artists whose success won't directly profit Mickey Mouse - or else Jordin Sparks is thinking of switching labels. Oh wait, maybe she is. Her official site still mentions her old label at the bottom of the page, and all information I can find on her split with Zomba links back to the same Reality TV Magazine article. I can't even find the blog entry cited in the article, so maybe it's a false alarm...

Whether or not Hollywood Records plans to snatch up this Idol winner, they are giving her the opening slot of the Jonas Brothers' world tour. Even if no record deal is in the works, Disney has really taken a liking to Jordin. So far she's performed at Disneyland... more times than I want to count. And why wouldn't like a good purity ring-wearer like Jordin? If Russel Brand comes to any of the shows, Jordin can beat him up for the JoBros.

But since Jordin Sparks can't just come on stage without an opening act having warmed up/ticked off the crowd, pop-rock band Honor Society will be opening as well. Since hearing this, I have not been able to stop bashing my head against the keyboard because I was stupid enough to watch a few of their live performances on YouTube, read that they were basically BFFs with the JoBros, briefly admire their tie-filled wardrobe, then decide they weren't good enough to hit it big anytime soon. Their album was produced by the freakin Jonas Brothers. Of course they're major contenders for the title of Next Big Thing.

I mean, it's not like they're bad; they just... sound like the Jonas Brothers' wimpy little stepbrothers. They're heavier on the pop than the rock and accurately describe themselves as sounding like a rock project by Justin Timberlake. Entertainment Weekly knows more about them than I do; check out EW PopWatch's insightful review here.

But, um, also, they're old. Not like Rolling Stones old, but still graduated high school before Kevin Jonas, and people complain that at age 21, he's too old to be a tween pop star... Plus, like, their name is Honor Society, which exudes almost as much lameness as Son of Dork... But then again, I am madly in love with Son of Dork's album Welcome to Loserville because of everything but its name... For one brief second, I thought Andrew Lee of Honor Society was either Son of Dork's David Williams or James Bourne, but no. Hey, Bourne used to produce for the Jonas Brothers; it's not toootally crazy to think he could open for them.

Hey, speaking of that tour, want some dates? The JoBros will hit the Verizon Center in DC on Monday July 13th. That's after they tour South America and part of Europe (who tours South America? props for actually including more than half the continents on your world tour, guys!) but before they get to the rest of Europe, Asia, and Australia. A complete set of dates can be found here. No ticket info yet.