Warped Tour

After spending a few days hanging out at Warped Tour, I've come to realize (again, like every year I go) that it's probably one of the worst things one could ever go to.

There's thousands of idiotic people every which way you turn: the super tan bros with the horrible tribal work, the super tan chicks with the HORRIBLE TRIBAL WORK, underage mall punks, underage mall goths (still wearing all black and the one-legged pant with chains), the "cool" kids that go to mosh to The Devil Wears Prada, and the wannabe street punks with just Rancid and Sex Pistols written on their studded leather vests. All of which refuse to get out of the way and look at you like a dick when they walk so slow that you could watch "Ben Hur" by the time you're able to get around them.

And who picks out some of the venues that Warped is held at? Seriously, a dirt and gravel filled parking lot with no shade and no indoor restrooms? What the fuck. Granted, it's not every venue that Warped is held at, but I hope whoever it does it is getting a percentage of the $4 bottles of water, the $10-12 cups of beer, and the insane amount of fried and salty food (all that is provided for patrons) that makes people not even want to, but HAVE to go back for more overpriced drinks in fear of heat exhaustion or dehydration.

And what happened to the majority of Warped being good bands? I wanted to see a total of maybe 6 or 7 bands this year out of the 40 that played. Pretty much all bad mall pop-punk bands or disgusting mosh metal. The last time I can even remember good hip-hop on it was in 2001 or so with Kool Keith and Jurassic 5. I can look back on past Warped Tours and pick out at least half the line-up that I would want to watch, but it seems like the past few years have just been about cashing in and not so much on bringing really good bands to the forefront and exposing new kids to something different than what they hear on the radio. Or if/when there are said good bands playing, they only seem to do 1-5 dates in the area(s) in which they live, so it's people that have seen them play local shows over the past decade or so and not the ones living across the country that may or may not have had the chance to see them.

Who knows, maybe the Vans Warped Tour presented by AT&T will have made enough money to stop oversaturating their traveling show with no-talent, no heart bands/artists and get back to their roots.

UP THE PUNX, BRAH!