Tonight’s Concert Pick: All Time Low at North Star Bar

Few things set young musicians up for a crash-and-burn failure more than early success. But the members of Baltimore-based pop-punk quartet All Time Low—who had signed to Hopeless Records in 2006, before they even graduated high school—don’t show any outward signs of being overwhelmed. Since releasing So Wrong, It’s Right in 2007, the band has enjoyed both commercial and critical acclaim, collaborated with Blink-182 bassist Mark Hoppus, and signed a new deal with Interscope Records. The band is also no stranger to touring and live television appearances, but it remains to be seen how they’ll handle the major-label grind once the new album, set for a January 2011 release, drops. (Hopefully, they won’t end up as more meat for the machine.) Of course, lyrics such as “Does it help to play as you’re wasting away/ Like a silver screen cliche?/ Cause after all we’re actors on a stage,” from the recently released demo “Actors” don’t necessarily bode well for the band’s emotional well-being. But we’ll keep our fingers crossed that the kids are just playing up the “struggle with success” angle and not actually living it. All Time Low performs with Rocket To The Moon and City(Comma) State at 7 p.m. at North Star Bar; tickets to the show are sold out.