 "Photo: Lindsey Martin / Staff Photographer")
 "Photo: Lindsey Martin / Staff Photographer")
The Vans Warped Tour, now on its 14th year, describes itself as a punk rock "touring music and extreme sports festival." The only problem is that there isn't very much punk rock, and there aren't really any extreme sports taking place. Sure, it had veteran punk bands such as The Vandals, and...that's pretty much it. As for the extreme sports element, it had a mini-ramp, (one of those 6-foot-tall "vert ramps" people usually construct in their backyards) which was occupied by a handful of underage kids who looked to be from the ages of five to 12. If that's what it calls its extreme sports now, then I don't want to know what kind of "wild" new games it has in store for the upcoming "X Games."
The total disappointment of this year's Warped Tour could be because a great deal of the so-called "good bands" were only on the lineup for dates ending in July, leaving "the rest" (insert condescending tone) for Southern California near the end of the tour. You're probably thinking, "He probably just didn't like it because all his favorite bands left the lineup already," and maybe you're right.
But even bands with music that you've never heard before can put on a good show and still be entertaining to someone who's completely unfamiliar with them.
Maybe it's because it's nearing the end of the tour and the bands are tired, but the majority of bands playing on the roughly 10 stages all managed to have the same amount of energy and stage presence to that of a dead cow.
Perhaps it's just the natural tendency of people to remember good memories better than bad ones, but the Warped Tour only two years ago seemed much, for lack of a better word, better.
This isn't to say that it was a complete waste of time, though. An unusual amount of bands did covers from bands on the complete opposite end of the genre spectrum. For instance, Christian metal heads The Devil Wears Prada, for reasons unknown, did not one, not two, but three hilarious covers of hip-hop songs. It started off with a newer- sounding song that, not too shortly after, became evident that it was its own death metal version of "Bleeding Love" by Leona Lewis, followed by its own rendition of Michael Jackson's hit "Beat It."
It finished its set by revealing "Party" on the back of one of the guitars, and "Time" on the back of the other, followed by a metal outro by Shop Boyz' "Party Like A Rockstar."
The only saving grace were the two last sets of the day by Angels and Airwaves and Gym Class Heroes. Although the former mainly blasted through its most well-known singles such as "Everything's Magic" and "The Adventure," the latter chose to cut out a few singles in exchange for… you guessed it, covers. Maybe they did this to get back at a whole day of rock and metal bands playing hip-hop songs; a headlining Gym Class Heroes thought it'd be in order to do its own version of a "Lamb of God" song (it's metal in case you've never heard of them) with breakdowns and guitar riffs and all.
All in all, if only the tour this year had just a few more entertaining gags like these, it would be one step closer to how it used to be. Alas, there's always hope for next year.
For more information on upcoming Vans Warped Tour dates go to: www.livenation.com.
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