Thursday, July 19, 2012

Warped Tour Review: Craig's Perspective



What you are about to read are the sights and sounds of one of the best (and one of the hottest) days of my life. You can skip around if don’t feel like reading my essay about my day, but I feel it was important to document the performance of every band I saw on that day. Here is my warped tour recap:

We entered the venue at around 12 noon, just early enough to watch New Jersey natives I Call Fives play on the Kevin Says stage. I just reviewed their new self-titled record and I was anxious to see how the record carried over to a live setting. The band was a perfect introduction to the best year of Warped I’ve ever been too. Their music just gets me in the summer mood, and what better place to be than at pop-punk summer camp listening to them.  Half of their set was comprised of songs from the full-length, including standout “Stuck in ’03”.


Polar Bear Club then played on the Tilly’s stage in the amphitheater. There may not be a band in this scene that puts on a more energetic live show than PBC. Vocalist Jimmy Stadt is an animal on stage, air guitaring and dancing to the tune of the band’s unique brand of punk rock. The band fit 7 songs into their 25 minute set, although they had to cut “Pawner” one of the best songs from 2011’s Clash Battle Guilt Pride. Despite that minor flaw, the set was still one of the tightest of the day.

Following up their recent tourmates PBC on the Tilly’s stage was Boston’s A Loss for Words. And what a set it was. Opening up with “Honeymoon Eyes” and blasting through an eight song set, A Loss For Words never let the crowd breathe for a minute. They implored the surprisingly large crowd in the amphitheater to still move around despite the chairs around them, and the crowd responded well, receiving mic passes from vocalist Matty Arsenault. By far the highlight of their set however, was the Jackson 5 cover, “I Want You Back”.

 
There is not a band on the planet that screams summer quite like Yellowcard. Heck, they even put the words “It’s always summer in my heart and in my soul” into their most recent single. So there probably is no better choice for a main stage Warped Tour band than the Los Angeles quintet. Surprisingly missing from the bands set were “Way Away” from Ocean Avenue and “Light Up the Sky” from Paper Walls, but the band can only do so much with a 35 minute set. This was my first time seeing Yellowcard live and I was not disappointed in the slightest. Any set that ends with "Only One" and "Ocean Avenue" back to back can do no wrong.

This is where the fun of the evening began. As soon as Yellowcard’s set ended, I ran over to the newly added Acoustic Basement tent to watch John Nolan perform solo. For those who may not be aware, the acoustic basement tent is the best thing to happen to Warped Tour this year. Featuring acoustic performances by bands that are playing full band on other stages and solo acoustic performers exclusive to the tent, the Acoustic Basement is about as unique as it gets for a festival. 

Anyway, back to the set at hand. I watched Nolan play the first 3 songs of his set: “‘Til It’s Done to Death”, “Not To Let Go”, and “Mistake We Knew We Were Making” (one of my favorite Straylight Run songs). But it was getting close to 3:15, and I had been told that Title Fight (who was scheduled to go on at that time) had been opening with "Symmetry" (my personal favorite song by them). So I hightailed it over to the Monster energy stage, just in time to watch the band as they came on stage.
After the short 2 and a half minute song was over I booked it right back up to see Nolan finish his set. And I was rewarded lavishly for this extra effort. He performed “Big Shot (Hands In The Sky)” and “Existentialism on Prom Night” (my second favorite song of all time) to close his set. After the set was over, I didn’t feel like rushing back down to watch the rest of Transit’s set, but I was curious as to what they played, so I sauntered down towards the merch tables around that stage to browse while I listened to the band play. I definitely heard “Memorial Field” and “Shed” among others.


The best set I saw all day long was from Massachusetts’ Transit. We’ve spoken far too much on this blog about our love for Transit. And that love is so well-deserved that I can’t even form the words to describe how good this set was. It’s a damn shame that Transit wasn’t playing a bigger stage. They carried a big enough crowd that they could’ve played on the Kevin Says stage or even the Monster Energy stage, but instead they were relegated to playing out of the side of a van on the Ernie Ball stage; an absolute travesty. If there is any justice in the world, the next time Transit plays Warped Tour, they will be on the main stage. It’s the mark of a truly great Warped tour set when the set the band has could’ve been 4 times longer and the audience would not get tired of it. If you want to see the band’s setlist instead of reading my ramblings, click right here.

I came back to the amphitheater just quickly enough to catch Lost Prophets play their last two songs. I was hoping I would get to hear the band play “Rooftops (Liberation Transmission)”, but unfortunately that was the song that they played right before I showed up. Cest’ la vie. But considering that the show was the band’s second show in six years (the day before in Scranton was the first) the crowd response to the band was phenomenal. The band played a roaring rendition of “Last Train Home” which elicited many a sing a long. While resting in the amphitheater waiting for Transit’s acoustic set, me and my group had to sit through without question the lowlight of the day, Stepdad. The electro, pop, dance, whatever you want to call it group was possibly the weirdest band I’ve ever seen on stage. The band sounded like Hot Fuss-era Killers if Brandon Flowers just decided to sing everything in a squeaky falsetto and completely out of key. Awful

I had the pleasure of seeing not one but two Transit sets throughout the day. The second took place at the acoustic basement tent.  The band pulled out a deep cut from Listen and Forgive, “Over Your Head”, which they announced was the first time they have ever played the song live. You can watch a video Don shot of the song being performed below. From Listen And Forgive they also played "Skipping Stone", "Long Lost Friends", and "Listen & Forgive" again, all of which they played in their earlier set, much to the crowd’s liking. The intimate setting of the tent provided the setting for one of the three best sets of the day.


I was then dragged (quiet unwillingly) to see You Me At Six on the Monster Energy stage. Call it the surprise of the day for me, but what I witnessed on that stage was fascinating and awesome. The band absolutely blew me away with the stage presence and talent. I know next to nothing about them except for the fact that the majority of the crowd were females under the age of 17 and that they were British, but now I know that You Me at Six rock. Hard. Closing with “Bite My Tongue”, which may well have been the heaviest song I heard performed all day, singer John Francheschi instantly impressed me with his ability at both the high and low registers in the song’s chorus. The gravel in his throat as he screamed “You keep me on the edge of my seat” is something that Alex Gaskarth and Jack Bakarat of All Time Low could never manage to pull off. 

Walking back to the amphitheater from You Me At Six, I saw The Used perform "The Taste of Ink" on the Kia Rio stage. It was the band’s last day on the tour, so the fact that I was able to watch them play arguably their biggest hit was pretty meaningful to me. What a zoo it looked like on stage, as all the people backstage came out to sing and dance with the band. The only other time I have ever seen that was at Bamboozle 2008, when a crowd came out to sing the last chorus if "The Best of Me" with The Starting Line at their last show before their hiatus.


The hosts of the Keep Calm and Carry On had just seen Bayside play at The Bamboozle Festival in May, but seeing the Long Island band perform never really gets old. Still touring in support of Killing Time, arguably the best album of their esteemed career, the band may have even improved on the last time we saw them, despite having only a 25 minute set.  The worst part of the set was that the seats in the amphitheater did not allow the sizeable crowd that showed up for the band to move around to the music. Bayside should easily have been put on the Kia Soul or Kia Rio stage. A band of Bayside’s longevity was absolutely disrespected being put on the Tilly’s stage, while bands like Falling In Reverse, Peirce the Vail and Miss May I get to play mainstage.

As soon as the last notes of "Devotion And Desire" played out, my girlfriend and I literally sprinted through the crowd all the way to the Ernie Ball stage to watch the beginning of Fireworks' set. We got there just as the second verse of “Arrows” began. Everything I mentioned about Transit playing the Ernie Ball stage also applies to Fireworks. The band carried such a bigger stage presence than that tiny, cramped stage could handle. Fireworks is one of those bands that I instantly associate with summer and friendships, and this set was just honestly perfect in its timing. Pile-ons and circle pits far outpaced the tiny, but active, crowd's ability to handle them, and the set was just 25 minutes of chaos from the first notes, to the “We were overthinking again” at the end of “Detroit.” 

 And now we have come to the end. What better way to end my favorite Warped Tour ever than by watching my favorite band close out the main stage. What more can I say, other than this: watching Taking Back Sunday on the main stage was the most fun I’ve had all summer. The re-addition of John Nolan and Shaun Cooper to the band has made all the difference in the world in terms of the level of their performance. Lead vocalist Adam Lazarra is still hit or miss with his vocal delivery (Warped Tour was definitely a “hit” set for him), but Nolan is always on point. What can be better 10,000 people screaming “Why can’t I feel anything from anyone other than you,” in unison.

The Vans Warped Tour may get a bad rap in the current music scene for its supposed downgrading in talent, but I don’t see that at all. Although the main stage was filled with many performers that I would not see if the festival paid me to do so (Blood on the Dance Floor I’m looking at you), I still watched 15 bands play at least one song on the tour and there were several others I wanted to see but didn’t get a chance. The tremendous amount of talent on the tour is a testament to Kevin Lyman and his staff for backing up the moneymaking mainstage artists with developing artists that could play Warped Tour for many years to come. After all, it’s not just pop-punk summer camp for the audience, it is for the bands as well.

If you went to Warped Tour, let me know what your favorite sets and experiences were in the comments section. 

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