Nick’s Warped Tour Report: Part 2

August 21st, 2006

Continued from Part 1.

I can’t believe that I somehow missed some of my favourite bands. Anti-Flag and Alexisonfire were missed by yours truly. Anti-Flag are a truly excellent and genuine punk band. I asked around for some highlights from these two bands and this is what I was told: Alexisonfire said some inspiring remarks, they commented something like, “this is what happens when you support local music” and
the crowd went balistic. Justin Sane of Anti-Flag wore all black, something you’d expect from him. Bouncing Souls singer Greg Attonito wore a Canadian Olympic Jersey, which drove the crowd nuts as well. Canadian crowds really do get quite rowdy. But alas, I was not part of that particular rowdy endeavor.

I sat down to rest in anticipation for some of my other favourite bands, mainly NOFX, Billy Talent and Rise Against. I sat down on a picnic table and handed out stickers for a t-shirt line that I’ve been working on and here’s what happened: I saw a man, approximately 24-years, old wearing nothing but short shorts get pantsed by his friends. Yes, testicles and all hung out. He didn’t seem too embarrassed as he raised his shorts again. I wrote it down in my little notebook of notable things at the concert. I continued chit chatting and handing out stickers when I noticed that same man, now fully naked, screaming and running around. This display of bouncing testicles and penis lasted for about 45 seconds. Though it was nasty, it was quite funny and the crowd all shared a laugh. This comical event was NOT over. Exactly 4 minutes later my good friend who was dancing like a flailing chicken stumbled into 3 police men marching sternly. I found it odd that these police didn’t notice my friend who blatantly stumbled into them as if he was drunk (though he wasn’t drunk, just excited). Why didn’t the police notice my friend? They didn’t notice because they were on a mission to arrest the streaker. He was taken away, but on the way out he broke free of police grasp and streaked one last time to the cheers of the crowd.

That wasn’t the highlight of the day, though it was as funny as Joe Pesci cursing. NOFX was my highlight. They cussed of the venue being too far away from Toronto, but since the crowd was already in their presence it was irrelevant. The volume of the music had been pumped up. You know you’re going to see some kick-ass performance when that happens. They played phenomenally. They were amazing beyond belief. However, I couldn’t see Fat Mike and the crew because there was too much dust rising up from the mosh pit. The cloud covered both the stage and the crowd and you couldn’t see a damn thing. But I was close and I knew it. I still screamed “F__ YEAH! THAT’S WHAT I’M F___ING TALKING ABOUT”. All I could see through the cloud was Fat Mike and his green hair. I went ballistic when he sang a song called “The Canada”. It would boast of Canada’s cultural triumphs and the crowd would go insane. For every three Canadian cultural triumphs (like the beer tastes better in Canada, or the people are nicer in Canada), he’d counter it with the line “But California has better Cocaine”. Oh that punk rocker. That green haired punk rocker. Hey man, you can boast about whatever you want in California. Don’t do drugs.

The dust cloud was bad enough for NOFX, when Billy Talent came on, the density of dust and dirt was insane. It looked like we were in the wild west and 4000 horses just started trampling away. You’d expect the cloud to clear, but it never did. The dust was far too thick to watch the band. Billy Talent played the first couple of tracks off their new album before I got fed up watching and walked away. Though I’m a large fan of Billy Talent I’ve seen them perform three times in the last six weeks and it was therefore no skin off my back to not watch a dust cloud in front of their performance.

Rise Against was amazing. I haven’t seen them before and I just recently become a fan with the release of their new album. Most of the crowd was really excited to see them perform. You could pretty much say they, along with Billy Talent were headlining Warped Tour. Once they got on stage, they immediately got the crowd throwing fists in the air. Though the cloud of dust was also too thick to really watch the band, you could see their silhouette through the dirt and that was enough to enjoy the show and enjoy it we did.

Though I was having a great time, it was to my understanding that AFI was going to be there. I went to see an AFI show in Toronto weeks earlier and was not impressed and had hoped that Warped Tour would be their redeeming concert, but they were a no-show. It wasn’t a surprise. It had been announced they were to travel to Japan for that date, but it had slipped my mind and disappointed me at the time.

Afterwards we immediately left the venue to avoid traffic and get home to the city to enjoy our Saturday evening still pumped from an amazing day at Warped Tour.

Posted on Monday, August 21st, 2006 at 12:38 pm by Nick and is filed under Blog.

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