 "Photo: Kevin Harris")
Though it’s been loyally nicknamed “punk-rock summer camp” let’s take a moment and crunch some numbers before we get into the institution that is the Van’s Warped Tour.
Seventy bands, seven stages, 10 hours, 100-plus degree Florida heat. What does add up to?
Well, besides about a couple hundred gallons of sweat, it makes one day when kids — or those young at heart enough to still handle the heat — come together to support the music they love.
All kinds, from hardcore metal-heads to 13-year-old girls with puffy paint fan-girl made T-shirts, come out for the show. And from doing just one lap around the Central Florida Fairgrounds on Sunday, you could tell that they wouldn’t have been there if they didn’t have a damn good reason.
There was no escaping the sun unless huddled under a shadow cast by one of the colonies of band merch tents. For a drink, it’ll cost you $4 for a water, or $6 for an iced tea.
So back to my point, why would anyone put themselves through this? Oh yeah, the music.
Dedicated for the past 16 years to providing old, new and up-and-coming punk bands and their fans a day (or for band members an entire summer) to celebrate the music they love.
The music the radio doesn’t play. The often angst-ridden music that gets everyone through their teenage years.
Granted Warped has had it’s up and downs in the eyes of faithful lifetime fans of the festival, but music quality is subjective. Watching the faces of those in the crowds, their mouths moving in sync to the words sang, snarled, or even screamed by the performers on stage, you know to them, this day is everything.
This year’s Central Florida Warped summer-session started bright an early on the main stage with Las Vegas pop-punk band The Cab. The lead singer, donning combat boots and a beanie despite the heat, revealed that it was their first performance on the festivals largest stage.
“This has been my dream since I was 12 years old. Thanks for making it happen,” he said to the squealing delight of the crowd made primarily of teenage girls.
As the set ended, another band was starting up on the neighboring stage. Not knowing who was performing, I milled my way through the growing crowd and just seconds after reaching the stage the bass turned on, and I got the full Warped affect.
My entire body shook as Attack Attack! took the stage. Not from heat stroke, or any natural cause, but the amplifiers perched in front of my face. This lead singer didn’t croon, he snarled, yelled and growled to the rowdy onlookers. The fact that this was indeed the same event as the one I had witnessed earlier, was mind-boggling.
Giving my vibrating ear drums a rest, I traveled cross the fair grounds to my third stage visit of the day to watch Phoenix pop-rock band The Summer Set. There I ran into much the same crowd of girls as earlier, but with a little more edge.
The band, mocking the “we’re not allowed to curse on stage” rule mandated by a sign hung off to the side, asked the crowd to do it for them.
“On the count of three, I want you to scream your favorite curse word as loud as you can,” the lead singer said with a smile. And of course, the crowd of mostly underage girls obliged.
Throughout the day I did my part to to check out the local Florida bands flooding this years festival. VersaEmerge of Port St. Lucie, Mayday Parade from Tallahassee, and Hey Monday of West Palm all did their part to represent. The biggest Florida headliner, taking on the main stage as the closing performance of the day, was the pop-punk band, with the occasional radio play under it’s belt, We The Kings.
Though most of the park had cleared out by the bands 8:10 p.m. set time, We The Kings still drew one of the larger crowds of the day. Their set featured crowd sing-a-longs, circle pits, and guest appearances by Mike Posner and Hey Monday’s Cassadee Pope.
Granted not the rowdiest crowd of the day - earlier I past a circle pit of probably about 15 people slamming into each other chicken fighting — but they did their part as a steady stream of crowd surfers made their way to the front as red-headed front man Travis Clark told the girls to “shake your booties like you’re at a hip-hop show” and the guys to jam out like they were moshing to a death-metal band.
Van’s Warped Tour 2010 left nothing in it’s wake at the Central Florida Fairgrounds but a few hundred empty water bottles and disguarded set-lists scattering the grass. But in those that were there sweating it out watching their favorite bands, it left them just enough to hold them over until next years show comes to town. Maybe that’ll give them enough time to wash off all the sweat, the grim out of their hair and for their bruises and sunburns to heal.
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