Hawthorne Heights Headlines Nintendo Fusion Tour

Hawthorne Heights Headlines Nintendo Fusion Tour

Annual Fall Tour Showcases Hot Bands and Great Video Games

REDMOND, Wash., July 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Music lovers and video game fans will converge in venues across the country this fall, as the fourth annual Nintendo Fusion Tour gets underway. The tour, headlined by emo-rock band Hawthorne Heights and produced by Live Nation, will visit some 40 cities nationwide between Sept. 27 and Nov. 11. In addition to live music, each venue will showcase the hot-selling Nintendo DSTM Lite and provide a sneak peek of Nintendo's upcoming console, Wii(TM).

"Video games are as important to the pop culture landscape as music," says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. "The Nintendo Fusion Tour has become a launching pad for the best in entertainment, from the hottest new bands to the best upcoming Nintendo products."

Hawthorne Heights will lead the bill, which also includes Relient K, Emery, Plain White T's and The Sleeping. Many of the band members grew up playing Nintendo games, and the Nintendo Fusion Tour brings their two passions together.

"Nintendo always picks great rock bands, and we are happy to follow in that tradition this year," says Hawthorne Heights singer JT Woodruff. "But mainly, I am an old-school video game nerd. I still have my NES with over 500 games. I love everything Mario, and I accept no substitute. Bring on Wii!"

With their debut, "The Silence in Black and White" shipping platinum and "If Only You Were Lonely" at gold status, it has been a whirlwind year for Hawthorne Heights. After television appearances on Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Kimmel Live, the cover of magazines like Billboard and Alternative Press, a chart-topping alternative radio hit with "Saying Sorry" and video omnipresence on music television, the band has made legions of fans. See their new single, "Pens and Needles" on MTV's Total Request Live this summer.

Gotee/Capitol recording artist, Relient K, will release their fifth full-length album this Fall. Relient K have come a long way from their high school days in Canton, Ohio where they wrote some of their first songs in a Wendy's break room. They have headlined Warped tour, been nominated for Grammys, had singles in The Billboard Top 40 charts and have had three Gold records in a row. Matt Thiesen, lead singer for Relient K, says of the tour; "I RC Pro Am really Excite Bike about this Rampage of a tour."

For Seattle-based Emery, being on the road isn't a way of life ... it's THE way of life. Through years of pedal to the metal touring, Emery has amassed an undeniably loyal and dedicated fan base. With their well known frenetic, sweat soaked performances, and after selling over 200,000 records, the guys in Emery won't be pulling back their weighty passionate rock anytime soon.

Chicago quintet Plain White T's are bringing energetic power pop and heartfelt lyrics to a whole new generation of young rock enthusiasts. With over 5 million total plays on MySpace.com and nearly 200,000 devoted friends, they are riding an unparalleled wave of frenzied word-of-mouth buzz. Plain White T's are known for their passionate and dynamic live set that always gets the crowd moving, and their show-stopping acoustic hit, "Hey There Delilah," will have every girl in the audience singing along at the top of their lungs during the Nintendo Fusion Tour.

The Sleeping hit the studio in February 2006 with Michael Birnbaum and Chris Bittner at Applehead Studios (Coheed and Cambria, Straylight Run) to record their Victory debut, "Questions and Answers." The songs are packed with undeniable hooks and contemporary textures, but their sonic landscapes are a lot like atmospheric and progressive bands from the 90's like Incubus and At The Drive In. Doug Robinson, vocalist, said, "Our influences are really, really all over the place. We listen to everything from Nine Inch Nails to The Police to The Mars Volta; somehow we were able to take four diverse musical opinions and craft them into one interconnected album." From breakdowns to bongos, The Sleeping forges its own path and has a lot of depth that is often neglected by many fledgling bands.

Past Nintendo Fusion Tours have featured top bands like Fall Out Boy, Panic! At the Disco, My Chemical Romance, Story of the Year and Evanescence. For ticket availability, the latest tour information and news about the Nintendo Fusion Tour, visit www.nintendofusiontour.com. The site will be updated as complete details about this year's tour become available.

Circuit City is the exclusive retail partner for the Nintendo Fusion Tour. The Nintendo Fusion Tour is being booked this year by Jeremy Holgersen and Mike Mori at The Agency Group.

About Nintendo:

The worldwide innovator in the creation of interactive entertainment, Nintendo Co., Ltd., of Kyoto, Japan, manufactures and markets hardware and software for its Nintendo DS(TM), Game Boy(R) Advance and Nintendo GameCube(TM) systems, and upcoming Wii(TM) console. Since 1983, Nintendo has sold nearly 2.2 billion video games and more than 375 million hardware units globally, and has created industry icons like Mario(TM), Donkey Kong(R), Metroid(R), Zelda(TM) and Pokemon(R). A wholly owned subsidiary, Nintendo of America Inc., based in Redmond, Wash., serves as headquarters for Nintendo's operations in the Western Hemisphere. For more information about Nintendo, visit the company's Web site at www.nintendo.com.

About Live Nation

Live Nation is a leading live event, venue and digital distribution company focused on creating superior experiences for artists, performers, corporations and fans. Live Nation owns, operates and/or has booking rights for 153 venues worldwide and produced more than 29,500 events in 2005. Live Nation operates more than 60 web sites globally. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, Live Nation is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, trading under the symbol "LYV." For more information regarding Live Nation and its businesses, please visit the company's web site at www.livenation.com.

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