Spotted at Warped Tour

On August 1, I find myself heading to the Vans Warped Tour for the second year in a row. Ah, the Warped Tour, where good old fashioned rebelliousness meets capitalism at its worst: overpriced food, water, and t-shirts. I am chaperoning my 14 year old goth/emo/punk rock sister and her friends.

“Just make sure they don’t get in trouble.” My Ma tells me. “You know how teenagers are.” Sure, Ma. I know. Kinda.

If there is anything that makes me feel like an old, old 30 year old, it’s the Warped Tour. The median age here must be 16, and the only people older than me here must be Pennywise. I feel like someone trying to be a hip dad, or like a creepy middle aged man who’s really into Britney Spears. Wait, did I say “middle aged”?! What if I die at 60? I could be having a mid life crisis! Maybe now is the time to hang out with the youngsters and see what they’re up to .

1:24 PM

My sister Marg and I arrive at the gates of the Marcus Amphitheater grounds. I immediately feel like a crotchety old man when I express my disgust for the incredible amount of flyers littering the ground. Most of them are from Turner Hall Ballroom and the Rave (with those annoying two drink minimum tickets stapled to the flyers); it looks like a semi-truck full of these flyers has exploded, blanketing the ground. The litter inside the gates is just as bad and gets worse as the day wears on. Warped Tour is all about swag, and most of it ends up on the ground. It may be the punk rock thing to make a mess, but shit, someone’s got to pick it up. I see a couple of interesting handmade t-shirts while waiting in line to buy a pair of $37 (!) tickets. Two girls wear shirts that say “I kiss emo boys” and one guy has a shirt that says “Sober Man: Protector of car keys, defender of lost memories.”

2:00 PM

Marg meets up with her friends, who are on a half-crazed shopping high, toting bags stuffed with the latest thing. Marg wants to venture off with them, so I decide to go check out gothabilly band The Horrorpops at the Hurley.com stage. I end up at the Hurley stage instead of the Hurley.com stage, where The Devil Wears Prada is starting their set. The group should not be confused with the book/Meryl Streep movie of the same name. They also do not dig the dark lord as they are a Christian thrash act. They sound pretty silly to me, so I wander around another 15 minutes before I finally find the Hurley.com stage, inside the Amphitheater. I catch the last half of the Horrorpops set and it is really good.

2:30 PM

I run into Marg and her friends and Marg points out two young women, dressed almost identically, each with dozens of rainbow-colored beaded bracelets on. They have a huge can of ozone-shattering hairspray that they are using to spray each other’s hair up in puffy, Amy Winehouse-like beehives.

3:00 PM

I catch a set by sociopolitical (but commercially accessible) punks Against Me!, then I meet Marg for lunch. She gets seasoned fries and Pepsi, which is what her diet mostly consists of, and I get a brat and fries and water.

I sit down for a while to avoid overheating. It is a hot sun today for an old man like me. I see a guy without a shirt on sporting a giant tattoo on his chest of the Monster energy drink logo. Talk about product loyalty! A kind of creepy older guy (older than me, even) is sitting across the walk from me, drinking a Miller and ogling the young punkettes walking by. Is he someone’s dad or he just here for the chicks?

4:00 PM

I check somewhat generic, but fun, ska band Reel Big Fish. Two blondes dance among a dozen guys in the “VIP” section, a ten-by-ten foot pen raised four feet off the ground in the middle of the crowd. Following the Fish is Cobra Starship, best known for the Snakes on a Plane theme song. A punk with a huge, spiky dinosaur-fin mohawk has his picture taken with a homemade sign pinned to his back: “Anti-emo movement.” Uh-oh, looks like someone doesn’t want to kiss emo boys! I’m wearing my Elvis sunglasses when an obnoxious drunk demands I trade them for his sunglasses, a generic pair of mirrored aviator shades. “No way,” I tell him six times before he leaves. He is probably the only one at the fest older than me, Pennywise, and the geezer ogling punkettes.

5:10 PM

I check in with Marg, then decide to sit down and rest in a small grassy square. Groups of kids are sitting in circles, and there are exactly eight people sleeping.

5:30 PM

An ugly jet-black cloud rolls in over the lake and the temperature drops way down. It is so brutal looking that people begin leaving the square area. As the cloud approaches and the wind picks up, people actually begin to run screaming. I will admit that it looks like the cloud has the face of Satan on it. I walk toward the center of the fest, and am surprised to see many of the vendors packing their stuff up, and festival attendees leaving in mass exodus. It’s ridiculous. The cloud blows past without a drop of rain.

6:00 PM

I catch a set by MC Chris (aka MC Pee Pants on Aqua Teen Hunger Force). It is pretty funny, insane stuff. I notice a pretty popular trend with the young ladies: butt messages. There are a lot of short shorts with messages on the butt, including, but not limited to; “Stare,” “Don’t Touch,” “Let’s Rage,” “Streaker,” and “Kiss My Butt”. Is ass advertising the wave of the future?

I go to check out this new-fangled band, Angels and Airways. Really not my thing. I find the singer and his banter to be annoying and pretentious, the music is boring as shit and the crowd is idiotic. Marg gets kicked in the head by a body surfer. I tell her it is a good souvenir.

7:30 PM

“OhMYGAWD! TheySTARTplayingASsooooonasweWALKa-WAY!
“OhMYGAWD…IKNOWTHISSONG!…WEhaveGOTTOSTAYFORTHISONESONG!!!” So screams and gushes a young woman to her friends right in front of me, not far from where Say Anything is playing. They head back. Say Anything is also one of the main bands Marg wanted to see, so I check out a couple songs. Hey, they’re not bad. I go to get a Miller Chill, which is absurdly priced at six bucks for a small plastic cup. The beer vendor asks me if she looks sun burnt. She is lobster-red, but I just tell her it looks like she got a little sun.

8 PM

The last act I check out is Katy Perry, while Marg and friends check out Gym Class Heroes. Marg tells me that Katy used to be a Christian singer, but now she just loves to sing about sex. I guess that is more or less true, although she also likes to sing about boys being stupid. Still, as a dirty old man, I find it entertaining. I meet up with Marg and we part ways with her friends, and we exit the grounds to catch the number 15 bus. We are both weary from being outdoors and being bombarded with loud music and advertising all day. VS