The All-American Rejects brought their RECESS Tour to a sold-out Manchester Academy on Sunday 14 June 2026, one of only two UK headline shows on the run and the band’s first proper Manchester visit in well over a decade.
The Oklahoma group arrived in Manchester fresh from their Saturday slot at Download Festival in Leicestershire, with a sold-out London O2 Forum Kentish Town date to follow two nights later. The UK leg marked The All-American Rejects‘ return to touring the country for the first time in over ten years.
The shows landed in the wake of Sandbox, released on 15 May 2026. It is the band’s fifth studio album, their first as an independent act and their first full-length record in 14 years, following 2012’s Kids in the Street. Produced by frontman Tyson Ritter, lead guitarist Nick Wheeler and Scott Chesak, Sandbox spans themes of reconciling youth, standing on your own two feet as an adult and facing the outside world. Speaking about the record, Ritter said it had “helped me survive in this modern age”, grounded in the band’s identity as a self-described “blue-collar rock band” that never quite fit a scene but persevered anyway.
The Manchester set drew right across the band’s catalogue alongside material from Sandbox, opening with ‘Swing, Swing’ and closing the encore on ‘Gives You Hell’, by way of staples including ‘Dirty Little Secret’, ‘Move Along’ and ‘It Ends Tonight’. The night also featured three songs the band would drop from the following London show: ‘King Kong’, ‘Fast and Slow’ and ‘I’m Waiting’.
Photos by Kelsey Thomson.
