WARPED TOUR

RANDALL'S ISLAND, NY

AUGUST 9, 2003

Sketchy w ords and gritty, shitty photos

by Christine Natanael

Usually up here in my neck of the woods, East Harlem, it’s all salsa and hip-hop. The corridor of 125th St. and Lexington Ave. is usually a mish-mash of what I’ll loosely call humanity. They’ve dressed it up a bit with the new Pathmark and Duane Reade, the McDonald’s and the DMV, but that hasn’t removed the ever-present methadone clinic hustlers and all-day beer drinkers. So imagine their surprise, early on the day of August 9th, when a queue of various assorted young punk fans started forming on the corner where the bus for Randall’s Island stops. A never-ending flow of kids that continued on into the day and late into the night...

I made the trip early in the morning, but when that bus let me off on the other side of the bridge, under the elevated railroad tracks, about an hour before the gates opened, it was clear that I was already late. For as far as I could see under that train trestle the bodies were at least 25 deep. There were pockets of rowdies singin’ the lyrics to their favorite tunes at the top of their lungs, and this was before the show even started!
Luckily, it was a sort of overcast day, which meant that the multitudes that took a cue from last year’s show and brought dust masks were prepared, but for the wrong element. At least the clouds kept the throngs slightly shaded, if not totally free of sunburn. (Believe me, the little bottle of sunscreen I picked up didn’t help much.)

This year’s line-up kept me running all day. With seven stages and over 52 bands, there’s just no way I could cover it all, but I did get to see some great sets. The bands on the Kevin Says Stage (which included Time Will Tell, Big D & the Kids, End of the Line, 2 ents, Breaking Even, Skyline Victory, Hurry Up Offense, Fear Nuttin’ Band, Grover Dill, Sweatergirl, and Beret), the Maurice Stage (which included Vendetta Red, Brand New, Tsunami Bomb, One Man Army, S.T.U.N., All American Rejects, Yellowcard, Slick Shoes, Coheed & Cambria, and Van Stone), and the Volcom Stage (which included Western Waste, Destruction Made Simple [who I did catch], Story of the Year, Vaux, Pepper, Count the Stars, Avoid One Thing, A.S.G., and Motion City Soundtrack) couldn’t really hold a candle to what was going on on the other stages. So I made my way over to the far side of the field and spent the next 7 hours running between the photo pits of the Teal Stage and Brian Stage, with short trips over to the Ernie Ball Stage here and there. You know that rush you get at a good show? Well, multiply it by at least 1000 and you're close to the excitement of the day.
First up to start off my day was a little mood music from the Mad Caddies with their west coast brand of ska-punk—gotta love those horns, man—then on to Thrice, The Starting Line, Poison the Well (who rule), Simple Plan, The Suicide Machines (who rule more), Rancid, The Used, Dropkick Murphys (who rule my world), Face to Face, Glassjaw, Less Than Jake, Pennywise, Taking Back Sunday, The Ataris, Split 50, Bowling For Soup, The Toasters, and the one and only band to get 2 encores, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes…I’ll let the gritty pictures speak for themselves….

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