Tales From Warped Tour

Put simply, the weekend was exactly what you think it was. As if Dionysus took hold of the festival with his bare hands, everything happened in excess and with energy, a quintessential punk rock experience. 

Whether the mania fell on the crowd by following the sun’s aggressive lead or through fault of our own, the festival was in full swing from the second it started to the fading of the last live song. 

For some, it started before the festival even did; and that would include those bringing you the magazine you're holding. 

Bright and early Saturday morning, Max and I sped down the 91 with all concerned parties in considerably dented shapes from the night prior. This is when I, double fisting cans of some sort of caffeine source, see a flash of pink and purple pass us like a swipe of paint on the monotonous canvas that is the freeway.   

This expressionist focal point was a decaled car, if you can believe it. Once the traffic slowed and the momentary daze of the early morning was fought off by 300 mg of energy straight to the brain, we waved at its driver, who was dressed in a matching exterior. 

We ended up having the same destination, later running into him at the festival when he remembered us through the midst of his openly-admitted acid trip. 

He blended in there much easier than the industrial scene lining the roads into the LBC, as the crowd teemed with life and color despite the uniform dark clothing of alternative music tastes — a coral reef caught in an oilspill. 

Unlike its host Los Angeles County, a city famous for reinventive amnesia of its own past, Warped Tour stands on the shoulders of nostalgia. Impressively enough, without making it a commodity either.

The energy was heavy with the ghost of the early 2000s inside the festival gates, which I would largely contribute to the lineup of bands, vendors and visual aesthetics. The grounds were littered with checkerboard and skate ramps. 

Beyond said gates, this nostalgia took a more reminiscent form of punk’s purpose as bands were arrested that Saturday for playing guerilla shows just outside (see Idol Worship Interview).

Day one came and went in a dionysian craze, with two broke journalists extra indulgent in the tents labeled “bar” after being inadvertently stood up by media reps, unintentionally omitted from our experiences’ preconceived professional counterpart.  

In hindsight it was for the best, we had the time of our lives and I interviewed a puppet on record just like every young music journalist dreams of. We ate a turkey leg the size of my head while watching Joyce Manor. 

Day two, that fated Sunday, our fellow correspondent Akira joined the bacchanal. It was 2 p.m. when we got there, the sun was at its peak. Sunscreenless and ill from the conditions the day prior we went on our merry way to Drain’s set, where we all got separated. 

As fate would have it, the crowd dropped me right where the other two were after crowdsurfing not entirely by my own will. From then, we were much better behaved and ate real food and drank a lot of water like you're supposed to.

We watched Lizzie Armanto, a professional skater Max ended up interviewing that day, fly down the massive halfpipe as childhood heroes of the 2000s played about 30 yards away. Childhood heroes of the 2000s mixed into the crowd like old friends, regardless if they were on stage or mid-air a half-hour before. 

Warped Tour is really incomparable to many other large concerts or festivals I've been to, but entirely similar to the culture of the true SoCal music scene. Be that because of its downtown Long Beach host, the lineup or the fans, it's a breath of fresh air in the face of a commodified music industry drained of substance.