From yard work to pop punk
At 10:45 p.m. on May 3, Shawn and Lisa Richter's backyard in Alpine looked like a music festival.
Just hours earlier, they were having what they assumed would be a normal Sunday evening and getting ready for another week of work.
"I was doing yard work or something, but I wasn’t really on my phone," Shawn said.
What he didn’t realize was that a major rock band was trying to reach him.
Months earlier, Shawn had signed up their Alpine home as a possible venue for the All-American Rejects House Party Tour.
The All-American Rejects — one of the biggest bands of the 2000s — could have been playing arenas, but instead, they've started throwing house parties. It's a kind of protest against skyrocketing concert ticket prices.
But the Richters never heard back.
On the day of the show, however, the band's planned venue fell through.
The Rejects had DM'd us on Instagram. "Hey, we're looking for a place. Are you available?"Shawn Richter, house concert host
"And then I went to Instagram and The Rejects had DM'd us on Instagram. But it was like an hour ago. And they're like, 'Hey, we're looking for a place. Are you available?’" Shawn recalled.
"Like, oh, I just totally blew the chance," Shawn said. "And so as soon as I saw it, I responded. I said, 'Oh my God, yes. We're home. We're in. Let's do this.'"
It turned out that Shawn and Lisa weren’t too late. At 6:30 p.m., he got a call from a band representative.
"So I get on our speakerphone and I run upstairs. She's in the bathtub getting ready for bed," Shawn said.
After getting some information about the house, the band’s team decided they could make it work. They told the Richters they’d be there in 20 minutes.
At 7:30 p.m., the crew arrived at the house. Then came the tour bus with the rock stars, including lead singer Tyson Ritter.
The fan frenzy
Around the same time, fans across San Diego received an urgent text from the band: The show was on.
Nicholas Penza and Sarah Van Den Berg are All-American Rejects fans who live in North Park, about 30 minutes from Alpine.
"Eight o’clock came around, and he sent a message out and was like, 'We have a place … It's in Alpine,'" Penza said.
For them and everyone else, it was a race to Shawn and Lisa's house.
"We're like, 'We have to go,'" Van Den Berg said. "And then we started getting ready in like five minutes, and then we were out the door."
Admission was free, but only the first 500 people in line would get in.
"It was a little jarring to see,” Van Den Berg recalled. “So many people showing up in this tiny little neighborhood.”
The sheriff just kept saying, "This is freaking awesome. I just wanna see everybody have a great time."Shawn Richter, house concert host
"You know, we're running around like crazy people," Shawn said of the preparations. "Trying to clean up and move stuff out, move tables and chairs out of the way, and all this stuff … And then one of them calls and says, 'Hey, the police are here.’ So we go up front, and Tyson and a couple other people with the band were already engaged with the sheriff. Everybody was totally cool. The sheriff just kept saying, 'This is freaking awesome. I just wanna see everybody have a great time.'"
Just four hours after Shawn heard from the band, fans were ushered down into his backyard.
"And then the guitar came on, and it was like, vroom!" Shawn said.
The Richters watched from their patio as the crowd screamed along to an abbreviated set featuring all the hits: “Dirty Little Secret,” “Move Along” and “Gives You Hell.”
"It was a legit concert," Lisa said.
The band was lit in part by a makeshift collection of house lamps, which Ritter used as props.
"It felt like your friend's band was playing at a house, you know?" Van Den Berg said.
House shows as a form of resistance
According to Pollstar, ticket prices for top concert tours increased about 40% between 2019 and 2024 — and that's before resale markups. The increase is the result of several factors. A federal jury found that Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation — which owns venues and handles ticket sales — acted as a monopoly and overcharged fans.
But the Alpine show that night, thrown together in hours, bypassed the traditional live music system.
"It was cool to just experience something that, you know? It's everyone's first time figuring it out," Van Den Berg said.
The All-American Rejects wants to expand their House Party Tour concept with their new website, Playhouse, which connects artists with people willing to host shows.
The idea is to bring people together in a way that is not only affordable, but memorable — and just different.
"The people that were here will never forget (it)," Shawn said. "I'm not ready to let this night end. Like, the All American Rejects are standing in my kitchen right now. Like, what is life, you know?"
KPBS Podcasts Live: The Art of Protest
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