So Long Astoria… 10 Years Later

Ten years after their hit album So Long Astoria put their names on the map, The Ataris have decided to give their fans what they have been waiting for. Their ten-year reunion tour started Feb. 28 in Scottsdale, Ariz. and will continue on with 25 complete shows, ending on March 30 in New York City.

On March 6, they played at the House of Blues Anaheim, where they put on an amazing show for their fans. This is definitely a tour anyone who loves The Ataris needs to go to and experience for themselves. Not only do they play their hit songs “Boys of Summer” and “The Saddest Song,” the singles from So Long Astoria, but they also play every single song on the album in order.

“Seeing frontman Kristopher Roe and the rest of the band live was truly amazing,” said Katie Nares, 24. “I always dreamed of seeing them back in middle school but never had the chance so when I heard about this reunion tour I jumped the first chance that I could and I bought tickets.”

“My daughter used to play this album in my car as I drove her to school every morning, and now to be able to come here and share this experience with her tonight was a pretty cool thing to do,” said Crystal Salzman, 43. “It’s a nice thing when you can take your kids who are now in their 20’s to a show and they are not embarrassed to be there with you, yet they are there singing right along side you to an album they introduced you to so many years ago.”

Another cool thing about this tour is that frontman Kristopher Roe is planning on using the profits to help fund the album that they are currently working on. As the fans have said, this show was, by far, one for the memory books. Even the openers helped to achieve that: GasLine Heart, Versus the World, Drag the River, and Authority Zero all opened for The Ataris with amazing sets.

“I saw The Ataris a couple years back and I loved them then, but tonight it was a whole new kind of love seeing them,” said Craig Brown, 27. “It brought me back to a time in my life where I was listening to them for the first time and for one night it made me think back to that and forget about everything else that I have going on in my life now.”