Vans Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman has pulled another rabbit out of his hat and kept Vans Warped Tour alive for its 19th year. The festival faced an uphill battle this year, with less well known big ticket bands on the roster. Attendance is down too, about 8% overall on average from last year. But the big news is that Lyman has been able to keep the festival, which is a venerable rite of passage for many young concert goers alive another summer.
While Screamo pop, in all its incantations dominated the landscape at the Ventura Fairgrounds, there were two other musical themes present in the elixir that made up this year’s festival. There were an astounding number of foreign acts from Canada to Norway, and Australia to New Zealand, singers sported a dizzying array of accents in their banter with the audience. Another big element of this year’s Warped Tour was the surprising number of female performers. Warped Tour, which has over the years catered to testosterone laden teenage boys, has become an increasingly level playing field for their aggressive female counterparts. One has only to observe the mass of female crowd surfers to realize that the current Warped tour is now a near equal rite of passage.
From the moment security dropped the ropes reigning in the first concert goers, a frenzied crowd raced into the fairgrounds to line up for a myriad of giveaways, and artist signings, and to gather at the front of one of the eight stages for their favorite band. Music fans first had to run to the giant inflatable schedule, to see when and where their favorite bands would play. The Warped tour continues to be one of the biggest experiments in musical democracy, with bands meeting before each event at 6am for a random drawing determining their set times and placing on the bill. The uncertainty of actual performance times combined with the short set times allotted to each band, pushed these musical artists to create explosive animated performances throughout the day, trying to capture the imagination of the crowds as quickly as possible.
The first band out of the gate, an animated young band called Emily’s Army, features the 18 year old son of Billie Joe Armstrong- Joey Armstrong on drums. With a hefty combined pedigree to live up to, his band laid down some hard rock grooves that had early festival fans dancing fanatically. If there was any doubt that the Warped Tour might have forgotten its hardcore roots, one only needed to visit the Monster Energy stage at any time during the day. The most hardcore bands played on this stage, beginning with the decade old post hardcore Los Angeles rockers, the Let Live Band. Fronted by animated lead singer, Jason Alon Butler, he began the set with his trademark shredding of his shirt to reveal his tattoo laden torso, while the band played hard core hair swirling beats.
Other notable performances included back to back shows by Gin Wigmore and Tonight Alive. Wigmore is a sexy young blonde female singer well known in her native New Zealand. Combined with her crack band, they offer up a persona similar to “No Doubt”, but with a more rockabilly approach to music and less a ska tinge. Australian group Tonight Alive, is also led by a striking young blonde female singer, but has a more distinctive pop punk sound to their music. Both of these bands represent an enormous reservoir of new musical talent similar to what we saw from last year’s break out Warped Tour band Dead Sara. The Story So Far, one of Lyman’s favorite new bands, featured the young Californians playing revivalist classic pop punk to a frenzied crowd surfing audience.
Although the largest crowds of the day were reserved for the main-stage Screamo groups like Bless The Fall, there was an astonishing array of musical genres represented on the smaller stages, including goth punk, reggae, EDM, rap and a wide array of experimental acoustic music. Acoustic stages could be found interspersed all through the merchandise booths. A myriad of goods were for sale, but probably one of the strangest promotions was presented by a new underwear company. They were represented by veteran celebrity porn star Ron Jeremy posing to pimp the product.
Veteran beach rockers, The Atari’s were popular in this well known surf town. Goth Glam rockers Black Veil Brides were also a popular draw for the day as the Warped Tour veterans put on an entertaining show full of arena rock style antics. British metal core band Bring me The Horizon also inspired an army of moshers and crowd surfers, led by the charismatic singer Oliver Sykes. Sykes later joined British metal core band the Architects (UK) (Not to be confused with The Architects a soul rock band from Kansas) on the Monster Energy stage for a screamo duo with the bands singer Sam Carter.
One of the most anticipated sets of the day especially among young female concert goers, was that of the group NeverShoutNever! and their charming young singer, Christofer Drew Ingle. It is hard to believe that the boyish looking 22 year old, is a six year veteran of the music business. His larger than life persona as a modern day new age hippy folkster, much in the vein of a young Bob Dylan, has made him a bonafide rock star amongst young fans that frequent the Warped tour. His good natured happy go lucky lyrics capture a feeling similar to that found in Jack Johnson’s music. But his persona is that of a more modern day minstrel.
The 2013 Vans warped tour may have not been the strongest year ever for the festival, but for most in attendance and especially those at their first concert ever, it was a fine ten hour day crammed full of fresh new music. Let’s hope the Vans Warped Tour is with us for more summers to come and continues as a rite of passage.
