the Warped Tour

My experience of the Warped Tour was different than yours—that is, of course, if you went at all. I know this based on the laws of mathematical probability that dictate that no two bodies, be they animal, mineral or vegetable, can occupy the same point in space at the same time. This is to say, when applied to my experience at the Warped Tour, that while I was up on the half-pipe taking photos of a near-bionic skateboarder with one leg named John Comer as the Vandals lit up the main stage to my immediate far left, you were not. Based on this principal I will relay the events that transpired which I bore personal witness to at the Warped Tour on Pier 32 in San Francisco, as well as events on the second day of my ordeal at Boreal Ridge near Truckee.

Day One started off with fellow Warped compatriot, my brother Neil and I, having a hellish time finding parking in The City, opting for us to find safe haven for my videographer Aaron’s white whale in Daly City –just a long hike and BART train ride away. About 20,000 people were crammed into Piers 30 and 32 when we got there, and it’s anyone’s guess where those people left their cars.

The Spankmaster, Kool Keith, was throwing his thing down along with sidekick (or sideshow depending on who you’re talking to) Esham. I didn’t find the spectacle all that it had been billed. Maybe he’d left Black Elvis at home and Dr. Octagon went back to the year 3012 to attend to his gynecological duties, because Keith came off positively tame. Sure his rhymes were there, but the energy was not.

Asked afterward if he was enjoying the punk rock crowd he replied, "Yeah, the kids really go crazy…" There was no mention of space aliens, porno, or Outkast in our two-minute conversation so we headed back out into the crowd to see what was becoming of the Vandals.

The Vandals waxed the crowd with what they do best, mirth-filled songs about "Behind the Music" and stuff they Almost Stepped In. Things get fuzzy here from the White Wolf Vodka ($1.99 out the door at finer liquor stores near you) and Mountain Dew we were drinking in the photo pit.

AFI got the kids chanting, "Through Our Bleeding, We Are One!" as they blew all holy hell out of the main stage next. For a midday act they were probably the most powerful of the early part of the show, all the way until Rancid rocked it hard for a hometown crowd. (Okay, they’re East Bay, but that’s close enough.)

Before that spectacle we retired with Davey from AFI to the comfort of his air-conditioned tour bus and had a few tender moments that will probably end up in a full-fledged interview to be seen here in The Syn or online, sometime soon. I’ll just say there were some weird moments, namely when the goth-punk and eyeliner-wearing frontman offers me a "massage" and almost acquiesces to my suggestion we strip my buddy Aaron (who’s videoing the proceeding) naked and tie him up. It’s all on video. I swear.

Back to Rancid—they got their East Bay pride pumped up as Tim and Lars paced back and forth, punk as they wanna be. The one line that stood out to me, from "Journey to the End of the East Bay," had Tim singing: "The guy, he said/Hey Tim, this place is Mecca/And I said, This ain’t no Mecca, man/This place is fucked!" This is speaking, I assume, about Berkeley, armpit of the West Coast punk scene, which, not unlike like ticks are attracted to a dog’s balls, draws those purists in. With the Bay Bridge looming just an Eastern glance away, it was a Kodak moment.

The last thing I remember before waking up in the back of our white Saturn heading towards Sacramento was Me First and The Gimme Gimmes belting out "Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard," Simon and Garfunkle’s 1973 hit about brotherly love, and rocking it as only those punks can do. Swingin’ Utter, Spike Slawson, and his bandmates were en fuego, sporting cabana-wear and pounding cocktails provided by an onstage cantina brought by the Fat Wreck Chords’ crew. It must have been Fat Mike’s manly patch of chest hair protruding from the neck of his flowery shirt that made my brother Neil have his lunch in reverse in full view of four laughing officers from SF’s finest. It put a fine stamp on the day and, thus, it was time to make a hasty exit.

Day Two began with a little "hair o’ the dog that bit us" in the form of a few shots of Early Times Whiskey with Hamm’s chasers in the parking lot at Boreal as we prepared to wade into the maw of the beast once again to perform our journalistic duties. Thanks to the lovely and svelte media liaison, Tara, we set up some interviews onsite with Less Than Jake, (who stood us up. Fuckers.) and Pennywise who we ended up getting into a bit of trouble with, but I’ll get to that later.

I recall Fenix TX playing when we walked in. Call me jaded, but I think those guys plain suck. I mean, why mince words? They did heartily try to induce moshing from the audience but all they got was a dust storm from all the stomping feet. We witnessed this ruse from a perch far up the hill in the beer garden which bent the image just enough to tolerate.

The Ataris whipped up some power pop for the kiddies a bit later, followed by H20 on the other side of the hardcore spectrum. AFI fucked shit up for the second day in a row and were by far my pick of the Warped buffet both days, with Pennywise and Rancid a close second and third. I saw some of 311 and will give them credit for at least playing a tight set. They may have sold out their sound, but what they do play, they play well enough.

Things got a little desperate after that as we ended up on the bus with Fletcher Dragge of Pennywise who is known for his proclivity toward violence. Especially toward me, as he tends to hold me in high regard for my pain threshold and willingness to participate in high stakes gambling. This time I brought along the lovely Sarah of Hit By A Semi and the aforementioned videographer Aaron, so at least if things got ugly we could have some hard evidence on tape and witnesses. No blows were thrown, except the one to my pride, which was inflicted by Fletcher as he correctly guessed which number from one to ten I had written on a piece of paper. It was seven, if you care (yeah, I’m retarded, everyone picks seven) and I’m the wiser and $100 poorer because of it. The guy felt bad taking my money. "I know I make more money than you," he said, as he tried to give it back. But I wouldn’t let him out of pride. We chalked it all up to karma because I took about $400 from him, gambling over billiards a few years ago in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

-words M. Cameron Newell
photos by Newell and Myles Stenger

Bookmark: