Fans who showed up to a viewing party for the Format concert film "Live at the Mayan" in downtown Phoenix on Monday, Feb. 3, were in for a surprise — a full unplugged reunion concert in place of the screening they were promised.

Kelsee Becker, a fan who attended the event, said there were even shirts for sale that read, "I went to the 'Live at the Mayan' party & all I got was a lousy the Format reunion show."

Nate Ruess and Sam Means announced that their band, the Format, was going on hiatus on Feb. 4, 2008.

Not quite 12 years later, that hiatus appears to be over.

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The sudden appearance last month of an Instagram account for the Format had fans wondering if the Valley-based indie-rock darlings were plotting a return to active duty.

Then, they announced that 2007's "Live at the Mayan" concert film, which features the "Dog Problems" album performed in its entirety as well as favorites from "Interventions + Lullabies" and "Swans," was coming to Amazon Prime on Tuesday, Feb. 4.

An audio version of the Mayan concert is also being made available at digital outlets including Spotify and Apple Music. A limited-edition vinyl version of the album is now available online at Hello Merch, a music merchandising business run by Means.

The viewing party for 150 fans was held at Hello Merch's Phoenix warehouse Monday, Feb. 3.

In addition to treating those fans to an unplugged performance, the Format announced that they would be performing a handful of 2020 concerts.

The story behind the reunion

Ruess explained the inspiration for them getting back together during the reunion concert.

"About a year ago, I was driving and I was listening on random, and 'Interventions' came on," he told the crowd, referring to the Format's debut album, which they "absolutely despised" at the time.

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"And I was listening to it and I was like 'I should probably skip this,'" he continued. "And I listened and I thought, 'Holy (expletive), this kicks ass. This is totally rad."

He texted Means to say, "Dude, 'Interventions' is awesome."

Means replied, "I know."

More Format concerts coming soon

With that, the wheels were set in motion for not just that show but a string of dates.

"We're gonna do three very small shows in three very small cities next month," Ruess announced. "We want to be in tiny spaces with people that we love."

He went to reveal that those "very small cities" were New York, Chicago and Phoenix.

Becker thought the Format might be up to something more than just a movie screening.

"Once they activated an Instagram account, I'm like, 'You don't activate an Instagram account just to release merch,'" she said with a laugh.

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Ruess told the fans who came to the event at Hello Merch it meant the world to him that they were there to witness this reunion of a project he holds near and dear.

"I look back at that musically and think that that was the best time I ever had and some of those songs are obviously some of my favorite songs that I've ever been part of writing," he said." And playing those songs, there's a weird therapy to it."

A brief history of the Format

Means and Ruess are childhood friends who formed the Format, which became one of the Valley's most successful bands in recent memory, in 2001.

They made their first full-band appearance in 2002 at Nita's Hideaway. That same night, the Format started talking to Elektra Records. Although they didn't sign that night, as Means told The Arizona Republic, "It was kind of like that. It didn't happen that quickly. It wasn't on-the-spot, after the show was over ... But somebody who ultimately ended up signing us was at that show."

The Format had come to Elektra's attention through thescout.net, a now-defunct website the industry used to discover new talent. The site had featured "The First Single," a song the Format recorded at Mesa's Flying Blanket Recording with producer Bob Hoag.

By that point, the song was a regional hit, thanks to exposure on KEDJ-FM (103.9 FM), and they had released a five-song EP, recorded with Hoag, called "EP."

John Kirkpatrick, Elektra's West Coast vice president of A&R, liked what he saw at Nita's Hideaway enough to have the Format play a showcase in Los Angeles for Sylvia Rhone, the label's CEO.

A few months later, they were signed.

But the deal with Elektra went nowhere. Their major-label debut, "Interventions + Lullabies," was released in October 2003, and four months later, Elektra was absorbed into Atlantic in a merger.

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What inspired 'Dog Problems'

The Format self-released a second album, an adventurous classic-rock-influenced indie-pop change-up called "Dog Problems," in 2006.

"That was taking it to the other extreme," Ruess told The Republic. "And I think that was because Sam and I both felt so dejected from what happened with 'Interventions + Lullabies.' We felt we'd done a lot of compromising creatively for that album, in certain ways, that the punk-rock versions of us probably never would have done."

So they reverted to their punk-rock versions of themselves. But as Ruess told the Republic, "We were listening to a lot of Beatles at the time. And Harry Nilsson."

They announced that they were going on hiatus on Feb. 4, 2008. And by the time the year was over, Ruess had moved to Brooklyn and recruited Andrew Dost and Jack Antonoff to form the band fun., who broke through in a way the Format never had, thanks to the 10-times-platinum single "We Are Young."

That single won Song of the Year at the Grammy Awards, where fun. won Best New Artist before going on hiatus in 2015.

Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Follow him on Twitter @EdMasley.

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