(Link to Original Article Found at Bottom)The fifteenth annual Vans Warped Tour made its day three stop on San Francisco’s famous embarcadero. With the Bay Bridge cast in the background, thousands of fans from around California congregated to see music acts ranging from punk heroes Bad Religion to rapper POS.
The acts started promptly at 10:40am with Attack Attack! Kicking things off, as people were already getting scorched by the sun on one of the hottest days San Francisco has ever seen.
The Devil Wears Prada were also early birds but still managed to display the most energy out of any act all day. They played many key tracks off their newest release, “With Roots Above and Branches Below”, as well as their more well known older tracks. They expressed frustration because they experienced ‘a record number of technical problems’, but that didn’t get in their way of having fun, especially when their merch guy appeared on stage to throw down some guest vocals.
Escape The Fate advised their fans to drink plenty of water as they showered the crowd with water bottles while transitioning from ‘The Flood’ into ‘Situations’. The foursome sounded weak and empty in the open air venue, but that is to be expected when you record with three guitars on a track and only have one live guitarist. And their whole bad-ass persona doesn’t work as well on a bright day under sweltering heat as it does in a dark venue with smoke and lights.
Many generations of bands were represented at the show, and crowd seemed to match. Punk-legends TSOL played classics such as ‘Superficial Love’ and ‘Code Blue’ on the old-school stage while cracking jokes about the band’s ages sky rocketing alongside ticket prices.
New phenomenon Brokencyde, who is pretty much four scene kids with swoopy hair screaming over Lil’ John style beats, gathered a large crowd; while UK punk band Gallows criticized the group’s fans, calling out that Brokencyde is a joke and everyone who came to see them shouldn’t have shown up as they blasted into new songs from their recently released ‘Grey Britain’ record.
There was an interesting array of intros that acts used to grab wandering ears as they strolled by. MySpace sensation Jeffree Star opted for a more contemporary feel, doing a remix of Black Eyed Peas ‘Boom Boom Pow’, while Less Than Jake used the epically old-school Star Wars Theme song to build up the energy.
On the main stage set times were jumbled, which left audience confused and a little pissed. When Bad Religion was supposed to play and Underoath appeared instead, it was comical to see the first three rows vacate, which were then quickly filled by energy drink induced teens.
Anti-Flag showed their support for the people of Iran and their current situation of political dis-rest while high rises filled the sky behind them. They were garbed in matching green tee-shirts that read “Free Iran” while opening with their well known sing-a-longs such as ‘Turncoat’ and ‘Die For Your Government’ as a wave of fists were being pumped into the air.
Some attendees of the fifteenth anniversary Warped Tour were beat by the sun, while others beat by each other during intense mosh crew battles. I think everyone who went can agree though that the show was a huge success, and all music tastes were satisfied over the eight hour event. Warped Tour and its followers may be growing older, but neither are slowing down.
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