The Vagrant Across America tour kicks off August 23 in San Diego with Face to Face, Saves the Day, Alkaline Trio, and A Newfound Glory. The Heroes & Villains tour – featuring The Get Up Kids, The Anniversary, and Koufax – launches September 1 in Lawrence, Kan.

This being a Napster-sponsored tour, fans are encouraged to tape the concerts and post their recordings to the file-swapping service’s directory.

Face to Face, a Southern California punk band, has long embraced the digital culture. The band recently allowed the public to vote via Internet which new songs would appear on its latest album, Reactionary.

So it’s no surprise that the band embraces its tour sponsor. “Napster enables fans to trade music with other fans,” frontman Trever Keith said.

“I’ve been a recording artist for 10 years, and I know what it’s like to be ripped off. Napster does not ‘rip off’ artists,” the singer said in an apparent rebuke to artists such as Metallica’s Lars Ulrich, who regularly blast Napster for allegedly violating copyrights.

Get Up Kids frontman Matt Pryor identifies with Napster as well.

“The Napster controversy seems pretty cut and dried to me. Record labels are worried about it because they have the most to lose by people taking their ‘product,'” he said.

“Fortunately, we make music, not ‘product.’ The more people who hear our music, the happier we are.”

The tours will have plenty of digital age features, including live show downloads, MP3 files of live songs and tour updates – all available at the Napster Web site.

Putting his money where his mouth is, Vagrant Records President Rich Egan said, “We are encouraging kids to bring recording devices to the shows, and it’s our hope that every show will end up traded within the Napster community. In this way, the fans can actively participate in compiling the entire tour and saving it for posterity’s sake. This is no different than Grateful Dead fans swapping bootlegs – it’s just the Y2K version.