One of the hottest alternative bills of the summer kicked off last week when Marcy Playground, Everclear and Fastball launched a month-long series of dates at Virginia Beach, Virginia.

For Everclear, the band hopes that the new tour ends more harmoniously than its last road outing, which came to an abrupt halt in Australia when the group packed its bags and headed home amid reports of inner-band tension (see "Everclear's Montoya Comes Home, Tour Continues").

But when MTV News caught up with the Portland, Oregon band backstage at last weekend's HFStival in Washington, D.C., frontman Art Alexakis said that the decision to abandon the Australian leg of its tour was the result of a series of unpleasant events.

"We all just got fed up one night," Alexakis said, "I got hit in the mouth and got my mouth ripped open and a tooth knocked loose by a boot [thrown onstage]. The next night someone threw a pipe bomb onstage that went off."

"Someone had thrown a firecracker earlier," added drummer Greg Eklund, "that was just an M-80. That was just a 'Pow,' but this was an actual explosive device that landed [onstage], and when one stage guy ran over to pick it up and try and get rid of it, it blew up in his hands."

"And then the next night," Alexakis continued, "the capper on it all, the next night someone ripped off [Craig Montoya's] acoustic bass, which we used when we recorded songs for 'Sparkle and Fade' and 'So Much for the Afterglow," and it was just like, 'You know what, we're going home.'" [900k QuickTime]

The Marcy Playground, Everclear, Fastball tour rolls into West Hollywood, California tonight for a concert at the Hollywood Palladium.