About 90 bands played on numerous stages and sold stuff from their merch booths before and after their few moments of stage fame as thousands of people milled around, working on their sunburns on a swell breezy Sunday beach day. One of 41 shows and also the thirteenth consecutive stop for the Vans Warped Tour at the Ventura County Fairgrounds, some of the bands were even good. Many were loud enough to make it a bad fishing day as Jaws, Flipper, Willy, Nemo, Mr. Limpet, M. Dick, Charlie Tuna and maybe even the seagoing Daryl Hannah, probably all skedaddled out past the Channel Islands.
A celebration of youth culture as well as a rock 'n' roll swapmeet, the Warped Tour has been around since 1995. And all this because stoner finhead Jeff Spicoli wore a pair of checkered Vans in the 1982 teen scheme flick, "Fast Times at Ridgemont High"? Who knew? But Spicoli's faves - the Stones and Van Halen - are nowhere to be seen and are not even - or have they ever been - on the radar. Warped began as a punk rock extravaganza and then expanded into a pop punk scenario which is still pretty much the flavor of choice now but there's an inordinate amount of scream-o bands and a few hip-hop acts and even an acoustic tent where London's Skinny Lister tore things up, quietly.
Scream-o is sort of like a typical rock band except that the alleged "singer" screams as if he's giving himself a lobotomy with a rusty screwdriver. A few Warps back, the "band" Alesana was screaming away and I noticed all the merch guys for various other bands, trapped due to location, location, location - collectively had their hand over their ears in the classic See-No-Evil pose, never a good thing. At this Warped, as I was buying a bright red Cap'n Chunk T-shirt from the merch guy he pointed out the obvious as to nearly Rise to Remain, "I don't know who they are but these guys suck!"
Way too much of that stuff but the pop punk roster was well represented with the likes of New Found Glory, All Time Low (maybe the leader in band shirts worn) and Yellowcard, with priors in the 805 and Mayday Parade who were solid during an early high noon slot.
A few Best Of observations: Best T-Shirt: Times Like These Are What It's All About: Such A Mess. Best Bumper Sticker from the PETA folks: It Will Be A Great Day When Our Schools Get All The Money They Need And The Air Force Has To Hold A Bake Sale To Buy A Bomber. Best Drink: The Razzleberry Peace Tea was extra yummy - and better yet, free.
Historically, Warped has resurrected numerous old school punk bands such as Fear with members old enough to be the grandparents of those high schoolers trading elbows in the mosh pit. The geezers of rock this year were hard left political punkers, Anti-Flag out of Pittsburgh, active in Greenpeace, Amnesty International, the Occupy Movement - the band even played outside the GOP convention in 2008. This is a band that sells "Joe Hill Murdered By The Capitalist" T-shirts (you can look up Joe) and found a receptive and obedient crowd of young folks during their early afternoon set.
Dropping the f-bomb as if it were "Punk & Awe," frontman Justine Sane extorted the crowd to form the largest mosh pit ever, with a reminder, "We don't want no machismo cheeseball b.s. - run with each other and not into each other and if someone falls down, pick them up." And for a while during their anti-War on Terror ditty, "This Is the End (For You)," there actually was a Rodney King moment as a two guys - one wearing a Dodger hat, and the other a Giant hat, moshed peacefully along among hundreds, not even squishing the occasional Little Buffy Cheerleader who were likewise, gathering elbow memories.
Actually, the mostly high school and middle school-aged crowd got along famously - just like always. It was date day for several boys and girls and even a few boys and boys and girls and girls. No one seemed to care about any of that stuff and if someday, everyone has sex with everyone else, we'll all be the same color , anyway. By then the Warped Tour will attract their children's children's children.
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