By snoadmin
Countless punk, metal and post-hardcore bands playing simultaneously on different stages. Merch tables and other random booths selling everything from CDs to Bob Marley T-shirts to social and political causes. $5 bottled water. And, of course, all those kids looking to rock out and enjoy themselves on a hot summer day.
All of this can only mean one thing: Warped Tour is back.
This year’s Vans Warped Tour got off to a rousing start in Pomona Friday as an eclectic mix of bands competed for the attention of the thousands in attendance. As usual, many different subgenres of punk and alternative rock were represented, including pop-punk (Yellowcard), metalcore (Killswitch Engage), post-hardcore (Circa Survive), psychobilly (Tiger Army) and straight-up West Coast punk (Pennywise). Even Canadian MC k-os was on hand to bring some hip-hop to the proceedings.
It’s true that this year’s lineup isn’t as packed with big names as it has been in recent years. It also doesn’t help that The Used, one of the biggest names on this year’s tour, announced only a few days before the start of the tour that it wouldn’t be able to play any of its scheduled dates because lead singer Bert McCracken requires surgery to remove a node from his vocal cords.
Still, all of the bands I saw seemed to put all of their energy into their performances, and the fact that this was the first day of the Warped Tour meant that nobody was showing signs of fatigue.
One band that rose to the occasion was Long Island, N.Y.’s own Bayside. Beginning with the fan favorite “Montauk,” a catchy and propulsive track inspired by the film “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” lead singer/guitarist Anthony Raneri and company ran through a half-hour worth of catchy punk-pop in a way that was energetic and effortless at the same time. As an added bonus, guitarist Jack O’Shea was on hand to display some awesome solos while flashing the occasional menacing-looking grin.
Despite the many quality performances on display, though, not everything went perfectly (at least for me). I was very disappointed that I was unable to see Set Your Goals play, since the band began its set at 11:10 a.m., about an hour before I arrived. The Bay Area-based melodic hardcore/pop-punk band is notorious for its insanely energetic live shows, and I was left to wonder how much energy it brought to its first-ever Warped Tour set.
Fortunately, I was able to speak to Jordan Brown, one of the two (count ’em, two) lead singers of Set Your Goals. Brown seemed very excited about playing on the Warped Tour for the first time.
“I’ve been going to the Warped Tour since ’99. I’ve seen every Warped Tour since I was 15, and bands that played Warped Tour were bands that got me into music,” Brown said. “I’ve always liked the atmosphere of the festival. If anything is getting you down, you can just spend a day in the sun and listen to some great bands.”
For Matt Mentley, bassist for the Orange County hardcore band Throwdown, even though his band has a heavier and more uncompromising sound that is better suited for a tour like Ozzfest, Warped serves as a potential opportunity to reach out to a new audience.
“Playing in a festival like this is really cool because there’s so many people, and there’s a lot of people who don’t know us,” Mentley said. “We get to play for a lot of people that we wouldn’t normally play in front of.”
Throughout the day, the performances remained reliably intense and energetic.
Post-harcore outfit Scary Kids Scaring Kids particularly left a memorable impression during its Warped set thanks to the antics of keyboardist Pouyan Afkary, who picked up his keyboard and bounced around onstage like a pinball.
Even when he stood still long enough to hammer out skilled keyboard work on songs like “The Only Medicine,” he banged his head and moved so furiously that it looked like he was on the verge of tipping the keyboard stand over.
Finally, the day was capped off with a relentless performance by Bad Religion, which proved it’s still a force to be reckoned with even after more than 25 years in the game.
In addition to playing such classics as “No Control” and the radio hit “Sorrow,” the band played a couple of tracks from its upcoming album “New Maps of Hell.” “Heroes and Martyrs” is vintage Bad Religion, complete with the combination of catchy hooks and unbridled fury long characteristic of the band’s best work, while “Honest Goodbye” is a heart-wrenching ballad that still bears the band’s unmistakable lyrical and sonic stamp.
Although the Warped Tour has been criticized for being corporate-minded and not adhering to ideals long associated with punk, the performances on display Friday served as an emphatic reminder that the tour is ultimately about the music and will always remain that way.
