Disney Channel Superstars the Jonas Brothers and Demi Lovato lead the campers' reunion in a new movie Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam. They're also headlining a concert tour that stops in Chicago this weekend. Jonas and The Camp Rock Friends have nearly sold out Saturday's concert at the First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre in Tinley Park. www.livenation.com.
Even if they can't catch them on tour, fans will be able to tune into Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam" next month. The sequel to the 2008 hit brings the main characters back together for another summer of music and fun. The movie premieres on Friday, September 3 at 7 pm on the Disney Channel. The movie's soundtrack, featuring 15 original songs spanning hip-hop, rock and pop/rock, is available on iTunes and in stores nationwide.
In Camp Rock 2, the teens have returned, eager to tune up and rock out. Nobody's more excited than Mitchie (Demi Lovato), who anticipates more than a summer of music. Fresh from a world tour, the rock band Connect 3 (the Jonas Brothers, playing Shane, Nate and Jason Gray) are also back. Shane to pursue last summer's crush on Mitchie with his band mates as moral support.
But this time, Camp Rock faces serious competition when a new state-of-the-art Camp Star opens across the lake. Down-to-earth Camp Rock may have passion, talent and commitment, but Camp Star boasts resources, infrastructure, and money - enough money to poach Camp Rock's counselors and put Camp Rock out of business.
Newcomer Matthew "Mdot" Finley plays Luke Williams, the best performer at the rival camp. Luke challenges Camp Rock to a showdown that will prove which camp has the most talented performers. That fires up the singers, dancers and musicians on both sides of the lake and they prepare for an all out battle of the bands.
Mdot comes to the role of Luke as an accomplished R&B musician who has performed as the opening act for Ciara, Marques Houston, Day 26 and others. He was named the best R&B male performer at the Urban Threshold Music Awards in 2006. Mdot plays five instruments (saxophone, guitar, piano, drums and bass) but concentrated on saxophone as a student at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Since he moved to Los Angeles in September 2008, he has been working on his first album.
Working on Camp Rock 2 changed Finley's impressions about his career. "I was working with the heavy-hitters for this movie and they're not thinking about niches—acting, music, dancing," he says. "They're into everything, the whole deal." Now, so is he. "I want to usher in a positive image for R&B," Mdot adds. "By that I mean a positive image for pop, rock, R&B, hip-hop – the urban sound."
He got his nickname, "Mdot," in college because he became fascinated by the production side of music making, with all its technical components. "My friends started calling me Mdot, as in, Matthew-dot-Finley," he says.
Finley was born July 12, 1987, in Dayton, Ohio. In high school he was a serious golfer and considered going professional but he decided to study music and he fell in love with all aspects of it.
The cast also includes Maria Canals-Barrera as Connie Torres, Meaghan Martin as Tess Tyler, Alyson Stoner as Caitlyn Geller, Chloe Bridges as Dana Turner, Matthew "Mdot" Finley as Luke, Anna Maria Perez de Tagle as Ella, Jasmine Richards as Peggy, Daniel Fathers as Brown, Roshon Fegan as Sander, Daniel Kash as Axel Turner and Jordan Francis as Barron.
Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam was written by Dan Berendsen (Disney's Hannah Montana The Movie and Wizards of Waverly Place The Movie and the team of Karin Gist and Regina Hicks. It is based on characters created by Karin Gist, Regina Hicks, Julie Brown and Paul Brown. The director is DGA Award winner Paul Hoen (Disney Channel's The Cheetah Girls One World and Jump In). The director of photography is David A. Makin, CSC (Disney Channel's Wizards of Waverly Place the Movie and Princess Protection Program). Costumes are by Mona May (Disney's Enchanted and Disney Channel's The Cheetah Girls One World). All dance numbers were choreographed by Rosero McCoy (Usher, N'Sync, America's Best Dance Crew).
Camp Rock 2 The Final Jam is the sequel to the TV/soundtrack/DVD triumph Camp Rock which for 2008, was cable TV's Number One entertainment telecast in Total Viewers (10.1 million) and TV's Number One entertainment telecast among Tweens 9-14 (3.8 million). Since its premiere, the Disney Channel Original Movie has reached over 137 million viewers and its soundtrack has sold 2.5 million CDs worldwide while spending a remarkable 10 weeks in the Top 10 on the Billboard 200 Album Chart. The Camp Rock Extended Rock Star Edition was the Number One TV movie and the Number One Family TV title on DVD in 2008.
