AJR reveals shocking backstage footage in tour documentary series

On Thursday, May 16, at 5 PM EST, AJR premiered a new episode of The Maybe Man Tour Doc, a series that covers the band's triumphs and hardships while touring. This second episode showed how treacherous some technical difficulties were, from delaying all events of the opening night to frantic mid-show moments.

Available exclusively on YouTube, the episode begins with lead singer Jack running through the packed stadium, which is an alternate view of them performing two songs while deep in the crowd. Cutting back to earlier, a pre-concert meeting shows the ripple effect of production issues. VIP experiences are delayed half an hour each and the show itself takes an entire extra hour to start.

After the tour successfully kicks off, clips of the wild crowd are shown, with one person even recording the show on a Nintendo 3DS. The band and its crew also have fun on off-days, playing ping pong and basketball, and traveling through the city by electric scooters. However, this doesn't last forever as a dramatic event in the CFG Bank Arena show unfolds.

AJR's new documentary reveals some shocking scenes

Early in their setlist, AJR performs the album's second single, "The DJ Is Crying for Help". While Jack enthusiastically sings, Ryan looks distressed as the audio cuts to a sequence of messages transmitted through radios. One screen isn't working while another is fowled on a cable, resulting in a potential early intermission.

Two songs later, Jack is still performing onstage as scheduled while Ryan discusses how to resolve the problem with a crew member. The tension stays in the air as the same is discussed during another one of the trio's hits, "Bang!". Everyone is finally at ease after successfully executing the stage effects necessary for "Karma", and the show continues as normal.

The episode ends as AJR gives some dedicated fans free tickets to the night's show, and a montage of heartwarming fan moments plays out. This follows the series premiere from April 10th, which solely showed the tour's preparations and the begrudged rescheduling of the original opening night.

The series has covered several tours

Although this is the second episode of The Maybe Man Tour Doc, it's far from the second time they've assembled footage like this. The band previously made Neotheater World Tour Doc, which consisted of five 7 to 14-minute videos that covered all the same type of footage, such as an early rehearsal of "Bummerland" as "Outside". This premiered on October 2nd, 2019, and continued through January 6th, 2020.

AJR did this again on October 24th, 2021, as The OK ORCHESTRA Tour Doc led a six-episode season that ran for over a year, concluding on November 6th, 2022. These episodes were lengthier, ranging from 7 to 17 minutes and usually straying toward the latter. Perhaps with this new series, we'll get more depth in even longer news about what the trio is up to.

These tours also offer insight as to what inspired them in songwriting, such as taking inspiration from the Perry Como song "Seattle". They replicated the song's guitar before making it unique for "Adventure Is Out There", additionally using a slide guitar from "Mary Todd" by Patches as inspiration.

AJR is currently on a short break from touring as the first 23-date portion ended on Tuesday. They still have 27 dates ahead of them though starting in late June, including an August 20th show at Jasmil Arena in Seoul that was recently announced on April 18th. Tickets for these shows are still available on the band's website.

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