The guys practice like crazy because their tour is about to start in four days. O-Town's vocal coach says that they are under unusual circumstances considering most groups have months to practice, not days. Also, groups usually stay together two to four years before even having a headlining tour like O-Town is. Meanwhile, the tour managers, Mike Morin and Mike Cronin debate with Lou Pearlman about the money issue. (In a previous episode, TransCon cut off O-Town's money supply because they didn't feel Lou should get 1/6 of their money and that the tour managers should get more) Lou said that if they didn't get some serious money by Tuesday, the tour would be off. Sure, cancelling some shows could pay for the costs, but it would give the group a bad name. He didn't choose to tell the group this until a few hours before they went on stage, and he said the only quick way out was to promote his movie Longshot for $380,000. It would make him and the movie makers happy. They all signed, so the tour remained. During all of this chaos, Ashley and Jacob persuaded the tour managers to let them play the guitar on stage for ?Love Should Be A Crime? to show that they were multi-talented people. Lou said if they could do it well, then it would be fine--and the fans loved it!!! Finally, the guys did their first concert of their headlining tour, and it was a HUGE success.
Episode 2: July 6, 2001
Just before the guys are off to perform in Jacob's hometown, San Diego, CA, Ashley flies to Redding, CA to do an appearance by himself in his hometown. Fans piled up to get autographs and hugs. Ash's mom, Paula Angel, was present, but his stepdad, Ron Angel, had "other obligations". (Ash's stepdad has shown a lack of suppot of his music even in season 1) Then Ashley met the rest of the guys in San Diego to do their show. It turned out that Jacob hooked up with his friend from his band, Pat, and convinced Mike and Mike to let them play a song they wrote together (before MTB) at the concert. The fans loved Jacob's rock edge--he was like screaming into that mike!!! And they liked his newcomer friend too. (And Erik was rocking out when he was doing back-up vocals for Jake.) The song they performed was called "Let Me Be". Jacob said that a "side project" would be good for him and he needs to write about things he feels strongly for. After this performance, O-Town was off to Redding. Ash visited his grandpa, Gilbert Parker, in the hospital to tell him that he scared he wasn't the same person anymore. Later, O-Town played at the same place Ashley graduated at. Ashley was telling the crowd that he sung a song to his graduating class at this very stage he was on tonight, so he thought he'd sing (and play on the guitar) the song, "Name" by the Goo Goo Dolls, to the fans. It was really beautiful because the song was sung great and it sound good acoustic (just guitar) too. The song really fit Ash's graduation well...It was a HUGE success!!! After the concert, Ash had a talk with his stepdad--and they same feeling towards his music stood--but they knew they love eachother. At the end of Ashley's visit, he took Shelli out to this beautiful place and played a song on his guitar that he wrote for her to let her know he didn't want to forget her. Ashley's only question was, is he the same Ashley he always was???