The Maine/Real Friends/Knuckle Puck/The Technicolors

The Maine began in 2007, when most of the band’s members were freshly graduated from their Tempe high school. Naming themselves after a song by their favorite band Ivory, the Maine set up a MySpace page and built an audience the new-fashioned way (they’ve since racked up 77 million plays), with some additional old-school word-of-mouth. Within months, the Maine were drawing sizable crowds and released a pair of EPs with their pop-punk translation of ’90s rock influences. They released their debut album, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, in 2008, followed by a band journal packed with pics, This Is Real Life. For the current tour, they're supporting their fifth studio effort, American Candy. (Brian Baker)