I went to Warped Tour the other day. That's weird. "The format of the annual Vans Warped Tour presented show-goers with a particularly contemporary crush of overabundance. With some 80 musical acts to choose from on seven stages throughout the grounds, the sheer magnitude and scope were staggering -- you literally needed a map and a schedule to synchronize your day’s revelry here," I write in my review in the Globe today. Read the rest over there.
The cumulative effect was like being airdropped into a teenager's Tumblr page come to heaving corporeality, an infinitely scrolling jumble of aesthetically distilled consumerism, hyper-active sensory overload, and fleeting declarations of infatuation.
Meanwhile, here's a bunch of pictures I took. Wait, is it wrong to take pictures of kids if it's not for perv reasons, but only so you can make fun of their taste in music and their pants on the internet?
Was a little late getting there, because who knew traveling down 95 South around like 3:30 in the afternoon that one might encounter traffic? Took an hour and a half to get there. What am I doing with my life, I thought, like fifty times in a row, over and overagain.
The point is, you get there, and it's like fuuuuck, what am I even looking at? Where am I? Who am I? And more pressingly, who is this band I'm looking at right now? Never found out who this was. They really 'gave it their all' though. A Loss For Words, maybe? You could probably string any four words together and it would be pretty close to naming literally any band here. A Band That Played. That's not too far off actually. Gave It Their All. Is that a scene metal band? It has to be, right? It Has To Be Right. Ha, see, you could do this all day. I Can Do This All Day. Sick breakdowns from those dudes.
KEEP REACHING FOR THE STAGE YOU GUYS.
That's a pretty good sum up of the whole day actually. "FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS. NEVER GIVE UP" *DOUBLE KICK DRUM TRIGGER* "ROOOOOARRRRRR." X100. Here's Maday Parade. This was one of the bands that was way too popular for me to get close enough to see too well, but homeboy seemed like he looked good in his tank top. Good job being handsome and famous buddy! I like that one song "Oh Well, Oh Well" they do though.
DO THESE THOUSANDS OF TEENAGERS MAKE ME LOOK FAT OR IS IT MY PANTS?
Here's After the Burial from Twin Cities, Minnestota. They sound like that guitar player on the right looks like they sound like. I literally have no idea what the difference is between something like this and tr00 metal. I guess the distinction is if the singer is handsome then it's not real metal? Or if they can string a melody together? "It's all about the riffs." - some metal nerd. I dunno bro, this sounds pretty riffy to me: After The Burial – Berserker
"We may sound a little different," dude said. "We're not your standard metal band, we like to think of ourselves as a band to inspire you to do your own thing instead of sounding like everyone else." This speech was getting too long to keep typing down on my portable typing machine, but the point was to be awesome and tr00 2 yrself I think.
It's hard work being a young punk fan...used to be you had to actively seek out bands in hard to find zines and talk to really bummer dudes at record stores to find out what was going on in 'your particular scene.' Thousands and thousands of bands are spoon fed to the kids now, and the overabundance comes with its own set of problems. Like how to possibly decide who to align your own personal brand with? SHOULD I GO SEE BREATH CAROLINA ON THE ENERGY DRINK SUGAR BOMB STAGE OR TRY TO CATCH I CALL FIVES AT THEIR SIGNING TENT? Some dudes are just like, fuck it, I'll just chill near this puddle. Nothing realer than that.
I PAINTED MY LEGS YOU GUYS. - Some girl. All the girls actually.
I thought this was something real going on, but it turned out to be just some bros freestyling. They were all mostly pretty good actually, but then one tall lanky white skateboard dude came in and bummed everyone out.
Feel so lost and alone in the crowd sometimes.
Chill out tent.
I forget what I was talking about.
Oh here is another band from MA, Arrows Over Athens. Arrows Over Athens – Must Be Dreaming Lots of MA bands on the bill today, which is important to me as a member of the regional rock scene. They do like a Paramore type of thing. Good for them.
I forget why this mattered.
Oh right, it was We The Kings. We The Kings – Check Yes, Juliet. Dude explained how seeing Green Day, Blink 182 and JEW years ago was super meaningful to him, before launching into "The Middle", which, ok while a little on the nose, was still fun. Feels bad I didn't get to hear them do my total jam We The Kings – All Again For You. :(
Hacky sack jokes.
Here's All Time Low about to effing kill it. Just kidding it's still We The Kings, but who can even tell.
This whole day is like a whirl of constant stimulation, there's no time to process one band before the next one starts, a band whose set you can hear bleeding over from the next stage anyway. It makes this type of scenecore/metal/punk feel even more disposable than it already does.
ALMOST THERE.
This is probably the only good live show picture I've ever taken in my life.
Singing his <3 out.
This is, like, You Me At Six? You Me At Six – Underdog. "One thing about the British? We're very sexy." CHEERS. "Why do you think you guys are so good looking?" CHEERS. "We invented your country about a hundred years ago, then gave it back when we were done with it!" SILENCE. Still pogoed though, didn't they?
One thing these dudes were better at than jokes was getting the kids to run around in a circle.
KILL THE PIG. CUT HER THROAT. SPILL HER BLOOD. (via Lord of the Flies)
Life is a giant burrito if you think about it, man.
"YOU LIKE W33D DOOD? YO ME TOO" -Mod Son, basically. Nobody ever wants to see the unholy alliance of a white emcee, a scene bro on guitar and a laptop, but their sunny weed jams weren't too bad. "I make music about the fact that you woke up this morning and that's a reason to celebrate," that one guy said. If you say so I guess. :/
I've made a huge mistake.
<3'D YR SET
Admired this bro's steez.
Watching other people work all day is tiring. Lots of sitting down going on around here all over the place.
Worcester MA's Four Year Strong were loud as eff.
You guys want to snatch a piece of asphault for a bit? Just relax?
INSTAGRAMMABLE CONTENT
KIND OF RUNNING OUT OF JOKES AT THIS POINT
Metaphor.
Simile.
Rise to Remain. Rise To Remain – Nothing Left UK metalcore is funny because they're all like "GAHHHHHHHHHHHHRRR!" Then like "Sorry, love. Did you fancy our riffs?" Oh wait, where did the pictures of Chunk! No, Captain Chunk go I took? Turns out it is possible to scream in a guttural French Accent.
"What's it like being the worst band in the fucking world?" Blood on the Dancefloor bro.
REACH FOR THE SKY YOU GUYS.
T Mills evincing what I think they call SWAG. So many hoes are on his dick, I'm told.
Kind of weird how the main stage didn't ever really seem to get filled up. Here's Pierce The Veil kind of.
This girl was good at her job.
Adam from Taking Back Sunday evidently going through his latter Jim Morrison period.
I fucking sincerely love TBS, no joke. You know what I love more though? Getting the fuck out of there before the traffic. GOOD JOB BUDDIES. I don't know, I got to go.
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6 comments:
Some good songs on the links - that Arrows Over Athens kicks a(r)ss. I'd never heard of any of these bands. How much was it in? Also there HAS to be some PTSOTL love for Beretta Suicide. C'mon. They rawk as well as the best of any of these!
I don't know how much it was because I'm a super important music journalist, so I don't know how much anything is.
Ewwwwww who's the old hipster taking everybody's pics?
Aww nuts :(
"Old Hipster Taking" would be an appropriate band name.
Wow! this was just rocking, missed it. Funny Hindi Jokes
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