The Vans Warped Tour

Going to the Warped Tour is sort of like going to a punk rock version of Disney Land - it's impossible to see it all in one day, and everything is really expensive, but unlike at its mousy counterpart, Warped Tour employees are probably encouraged to be pierced and tattooed.
Depending on whom you spoke to or what promotional item you saw, the show took place in a variety of locations: Lake Tahoe, Boreal and Soda Springs, Nevada, were all thrown around interchangeably. The only water to be found cost three bucks a bottle, and we never crossed the state line - if you were there, I guess you could tell people whatever you want; no one would be able to prove you wrong. In any case, this stop on the tour landed at the base of some honkin' big, dusty-as-fuck mountain that doubled as a parking lot somewhere in the Sierra Nevadas.
There's a whole lot of stuff going on at the Warped Tour. Attractions cater to a wide array of interests ranging from fringe politics to free Yoo Hoo, from extreme sports to extreme drumming. Skateboarders, in-line skaters and dudes on tripped-out Huffys took turns taking nasty spills on the half-pipe between occasionally landing a move. But what brings the people is, of course, the music, and with seven stages and like…a billion bands, it's impossible to cover it all. Here are some of the highlights:
Situated on top of a hill, the Volcom stage was one of the smallest, but it had some of the more interesting and diverse acts to play the festival and the greatest variety - from reggae to metal. Wanted Dead from Oceanside, CA played straight-up hardcore punk. "100 Proof Blackout" was a scathing ode to Jack Daniels and was well received by a crowd that moshed up a healthy cloud of dust. Kona, Hawaii's Pepper blended rock, punk and dancehall reggae to create an energetic island groove. Kaleo Wassman and Bret Bollinger combined easy raps and smooth vocals, and Yesod Williams kept the rhythms heavy behind the drums. Despite crippling technical problems which plagued the smaller stages and cut all the sets short, Autopilot Off kept a good turn out with a brand of pop-punk that was much edgier than their main stage parallels. I'd like to check them out again when their equipment is working. Finally, Death By Stereo sprinkled grandiose, guitar-shredding metal into their punk rock to close out festivities on the Volcom stage. Though I couldn't decipher lead vocalist Efrem Schulz's babbling, they were a lot of fun to watch and had pretty nifty merchandise at affordable prices.
The East Coast dominated the Maurice stage, sporting New York City gutter punks, The Casualties. This impressively haired quartet came out to police sirens and helicopter blades whirring over the speakers and proceeded to whip their crowd into a frenzy. In an unsolicited quote, a scary old woman hinted to me that she believed The Casualties were "too punk for the Warped Tour." I agreed with her, because I was afraid she might stab me. Later on, in a shocking turn of events, Thursday proved that something good could emerge from the rancid sewer of New Brunswick, New Jersey. A receptive, familiar crowd was jolted by the band's highly emotive, harmonic spin on hardcore. Frontman Geoff Rickly put off phenomenal frantic energy, and the crowd was eating it up, trampling the ground to the vicious beats of drummer, Tucker Rule. Judging by their performance, and the audience's reaction, if Thursday is on the bill next year, they'll probably get bumped up to the main stages.
As for the bigger name bands, I have to say that I was a bit disappointed. The sound was generally bad. I don't know if it was the speakers or because of how the terrain was situated, but the music swirled from loud to quiet. Also, the main stages simply lacked variety. Lagwagon, Mxpx, Something Corporate, who covered one of my favorite songs, "Anything, Anything" by Dramarama, and fucking butchered it, all seemed to blend together into one unrecognizable mess - though I have to admit that New Found Glory was pretty fucking good. I found myself singing along as much as the 16-year-old girls standing next to me. My shame runs deep.
It wasn't all bad though. Flogging Molly threatened to bring the mountain down with "What's Left of the Flag," "Salty Dog" and an extended jam of "Black Friday Rule." I've seen them play three times now, and even in the small dose that riled the large crowd at the Warped Tour, the "Guinness soaked musical body blow" always put on the most passionate live performances I've seen. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones turned it up a notch too. The new songs, "The Old School Off the Bright" and "You Gotta Go" from A Jackknife to a Swan sounded great and got a good response. Dicky Barrett's screeching vocals have a distinct quality, though at times I couldn't tell if he was losing his voice or not. Any holes in Barrett's singing were filled in nicely by guitarist Lawrence Katz's back up vocals. And closing the show, Bad Religion quickly ran through a sampling of their large catalog, taking it way back on songs like "Suffer," up through their better-known "American Jesus" and beyond.
The Vans Warped Tour is great if you like spending all day out in the sun, enjoy live music and are about eight years younger than I am. It's a long day - over eight hours, and there's just too much going on. Don't get me wrong, the tour has a great atmosphere - among the thousands of people who attended the stop at Boreal, I saw only one fight, and all the bands urged the crowd to check out the other stages and gave thanks to the acts who performed before and after them. However, the sets are too short for my taste - the two main stages are like a conveyor belt, running in strict half-hour blocks. While I think it's cool that the tour prides itself on not having a headlining act, it would be nice to see the last band get more time.
- James Barone
- Photos by Jeff Shaner

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