IDOL TRACKER

In two weeks, the Top 10 contestants of Season 8 of “American Idol” will climb aboard buses for the final rite of an Idol’s passage: the 50-city concert tour set to kick off in Portland, Ore., on July 5. For the Idols, the tour represents not only a chance to play rock star in packed arenas, but also the biggest paydays of their careers, with checks of reportedly $100,000-plus coming their way for the four months of labor.

But before the road, there are songs to arrange, dance moves to choreograph, wardrobes to fit, and a few last moments of peace.

Last week, a giddy first-day-of-school feeling reigned over lunch at the Idols’ Burbank rehearsal space, where the 10 convened for their first group rehearsal. Over beef kebabs and chocolate cake, which they enjoyed on Formica tabletops in a fluorescent-lit break room, the mood was cheerful and hyper as this year’s winner, Kris Allen, along with Megan Joy, Matt Giraud, Michael Sarver, Anoop Desai and Lil Rounds chatted, breaking sporadically into Journey’s ubiquitous “Don’t Stop Believing.”

Since these are twentysomethings, one topic of conversation kept coming up: Can one resist the call of Twitter?

Anoop, Matt and Michael are all committed tweeters. Lil, Megan and Kris have thus far held out. Matt told Anoop that he knew they would be friends when he saw Anoop had an iPhone. This year has marked the first in which, thanks to Twitter, “Idol” contestants have been able to speak directly to their public. But that has presented challenges.

“I tweeted that I was at Disneyland,” Matt said about a trip a week earlier, “and when I came outside there were six people waiting for me.”

For Megan, the pressures of the Twitter revolution and generally developing her online presence loom as a headache. “I got meganjoy.org,” she said, “But I haven’t done anything with it. I really hate the online stuff. If I Twittered, I am such a perfectionist, I would need to do it all the time.”

Another question put to the table elicited groans: What is the dumbest thing you get asked by the media?

“Did America get it right?” Anoop said to nods of agreement. “What are you going to do after the tour?” He again offered. “They expect you to have your whole career planned already.”

“How did you feel when . . . ,” said Lil.

“When you were voted off,” said others, finishing the thought. “When Simon called you . . . “

Lunch over, they were soon in rehearsal, where the giggles continued during a run-through of the finale: Journey’s classic power ballad, which the group sang while being put through their paces by a choreographer and a voice coach.

During one pause, Danny Gokey broke into a rap: “You know if I’m on my iPhone, I am Matt Giraud.” Matt, using the lull to text or tweet, glanced up and laughed.

They reached the last lines of the Journey song, when it transitioned into “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye,” and then back again to “Don’t Stop Believing’s” final crescendo. Despite the giggles and the jokes, the group delivered the concluding harmony with force, fists raised in the air.

As the rest teased Matt about the weak angle of his extended arm, the perfectionist Adam Lambert stepped forward to confer with the vocal coach. “That transition to ‘nah, nah, nah, nah, hey, hey,’ felt sloppy to me,” he said.

The others, however, revved up for the final leg of their “Idol” journey, seemed to be thinking of little but jumping on that midnight train going -- as the song says -- anywhere.

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richard.rushfield@latimes.com