Warped Tour
Randall’s Island, NY
August 7, 2004
by Zebulun Kreiter / photos by Gary Quintal

LINKS:

warpedtour.com

After three years of habitually traveling to Randall’s Island once every summer to hear my favorite pop-punk and emo bands, I thought I had seen all that Warped Tour had to offer. With a lineup very similar to that of other years, I didn’t expect many surprises from this year’s concert. However, this year’s Warped Tour was more discombobulated and diverse than ever before.

After seeing New Found Glory and Sworn Enemy play on the same day two years ago, I thought that I had seen the complete range of what the Warped Tour has to offer, but this year a stage devoted to hip-hop completely changed the dynamic of the tour. Not only have the performers become more diverse, but the dynamic of the crowd has changed a bit as well. Although it is hard to tell if attendance has been steadily increasing over the past three years, the people who go to Warped Tour seem to be younger and less “punk” in their style than they were only a couple of years ago. Bands such as Good Charlotte and Sugarcult have always attracted a mainstream crowd, however, the growing popularity of this kind of music has started attracting more people who don’t usually go to punk shows. This is not a bad thing or unexpected. After all, it is not as if Vans Warped Tour wasn’t already a hotspot for advertisers through all of the corporate sponsorships that help to fund the tour. Sunday punks still come out in full attire, but suburban mallrats are now associating with this punk festival as well.

My main complaint would have to be the scheduling. If I wasn’t so forgetful, or just lazy, I would have signed up to have the set times sent to my phone via text message, over the internet. Of course I had to resort to running over to the giant blow up schedule every half hour to decide which band I wanted to see more. On one of the side stages, there was a set up delay early in the day which caused every set time to be pushed back about 40 minutes. This added confusion caused me to miss Boys Night Out, the only band that I had wanted to see that I didn’t get to. Aside from this small setback, I caught every other set that I had intended to see.

When I arrived at the gate around noon, I rushed in to see who was playing since set times are not announced in advance. Remembering that Thursday had played at 12:30 two years ago I made sure to arrive early, however, there were no bands that I wanted to see until mid afternoon. With eight different stages (main, Volcom, Ernie Ball, Maurice, Lyman Says, Uproar, Smartpunk, and a hip-hop stage) one is bound to miss a number of bands so I had to prioritize.

As usual, the bands that I wanted to see the most proved disappointing, but there were just as many pleasant surprises as disappointments. To start with the bad news, Coheed and Cambria was awful. Since the minimum song length for the band is around five and a half minutes (besides a couple of radio-friendly ones), the half hour Warped Tour set does not fit their music well in the first place. On top of this, vocalist/ guitarist Claudio Sanchez, who is known for his flawless soprano range, hit about 30% of his notes. I’m sure that it must be hard to play guitar and sing like a eunuch simultaneously, but after doing such an amazing job on “In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3” I was let down by their boring and inaccurate set.

Bleed the Dream, whose drummer was recently diagnosed with Leukemia, was helped out by friends in Matchbook Romance and Yellowcard during their set. Despite the fact that their crowd was small and unfamiliar with their music, this Los Angeles screamo quartet put on a good performance that sounded good and was still entertaining and energized.

Although there was much less hardcore at Warped this year as opposed to other years, the Smartpunk.com stage hosted a couple of acts for those fans looking to windmill and floorpunch. Other years there have been more straight up hardcore bands, but since screamo is the flavor of the week it dominated the Smartpunk.com stage. The Bled, who have gained fans from both the hardcore and emo scenes with their melodic yet brutal sound put on a flawless set as they are known to do. Many kids who had never seen a hardcore pit before looked amused as the fists started flying.

Underoath, who were disappointing at Hellfest only two weeks before surprised me with an amazing set at Warped Tour. They played a heavier set than at the testosterone pumped hardcore festival in New Jersey a couple weeks before, which was a pleasant change. The pit for Underoath was so large, that it extended past stage right into the Port-O-Stan area, making the act of using the toilet even more unpleasant than it already is.

The addition of a stage devoted to hip-hop was an interesting addition. I can’t say that I spent much time there (or anyone else for that matter), but it was relieving to hear scratching and sampling after hours of screaming and distorted guitars.
Other stages such as the “Lyman says” stage made things even more complicated since these small booths presented unsigned bands such as Madison, the teenage emo outfit from New Jersey. They put on a good show despite problems with the bass amp. The Volcom and Ernie Ball stages also presented great acts such as rising bands Letter Kills and Silverstein. Letter Kills is a hard rock/emo hybrid from Los Angeles with killer hooks and Good Charlotte choruses. Their set was among the best of the day due to their energetic singer who is one of the most charismatic frontmen I have ever seen perform. Silverstein, from Ontario provided some unexpected entertainment when they wrestled each other onstage during their performance.