So I haven’t written about my Warped Tour 09′ experience yet because there really wasn’t that much good to say about it. I almost feel like I did 10 years ago when there were only a couple of bands on Warped that I had any desire to see. A more appropriate title of this post would be “The Fall of Warped Tour,” but I don’t have the guts to title it that because I’ve probably just grown out of it.
So we started off the day trading a 12 pack of Heineken with Steve the Nigerian Trojan Condom Rep for 3 VIP wristbands. That is a pretty good deal since it cost $40 to get in this year. That is double what it was 5 years ago. So now you pay twice as much for a lot less good bands.
After arriving at 1 o’clock and dealing with the heat, the rain and a 10,000 kids with neon sunglasses, we stuck around until the end to hear Gallows. We walked up during their first song and couldn’t figure out what was going on. There was no one on stage, but the band was playing and their was a huge circle pit going. Everyone from Gallows except the drummer played the entire show, minus the encore in the middle of the crowd going bat shit crazy with their fans.
In the last 9 years there have been three moments at Warped that were the best things I have ever seen at a live show. First was when the singer of S.T.U.N. climbed to the top of the Ernie Ball stage and with the mic wrapped around his neck. The second coolest thing was when Bert McCracken of The Used did a 20 foot faith fall into the crowd after he had just broken his arm doing it at a previous show and the third was Gallows being in the middle of the crowd for an entire 30 minute set, making fun of every other band on Warped Tour minus Alexisonfire and Bayside.
Gallows straight up verbally abused every “neon” band on warped tour and called out Brokencyde specifically for their major suckage. Gallows is what Warped Tour is all about and it felt good to be reminded of the real reason I was there after listening to crap all day. I’m lookin at you Jeffree Star.
Other notable bands that I enjoyed were Underoath, Bayside, Shooter Jennings anddd that’s about it.
Graeme Fouste was beside us at a couple of these shows and got some great pictures of Bayside and Underoath, so go to his website and check them out. There are some more good ones here.
The best thing I could have done with my backstage pass this year was punch Jeffree Star in the face and I didn’t do that.
