Warped Tour

Damn it was hot this year. As far as I know officially it was around 104 degrees but it sure as hell felt a lot hotter than that. At first I wasn't all that excited about the lineup, I could care less about bands like The Starting Line, Simple Plan and My Chemical Romance; and I really don't give a shit that Billy Idol's decrepit ass was playing so it was pretty hard for me to get motivated about spending 10 hours in the scorching sun. That is until I went into the production office and got a lineup schedule. Some of my favorite bands were playing; Dropkick Murpheys, Strung Out, No Use for a Name, and even some bands that I'd been meaning to check out like The Transplants and the Horrorpops.

I ended up checking out a few bands and here's what I thought of them:

Dropkick Murpheys - Kicked major ass. They had a huge crowd with some of the most devoted fans I'd ever seen, some who had giant 2 person flags that they had made and a bunch of other people with big 1 person flags. I saw about half of their set until I had to go let Mckell in, but they sounded really good.

Strung Out - Now I've seen Strung Out before and they kicked ass so I know what their capable of, but I don't have much good to say about their Warped Tour performance. They sounded out of time the whole set, it seemed like their sound was just not happening and nothing seemed to come together. Most of their songs ended up just sounding like a whole lot of noise, nothing like the originals. I wasn't that impressed.

No Use for a Name - These guys get my best of show award. Not only did they sound good, they rocked hard so hard in fact, that I was nearly rocked into a coma during a few of their new songs. I wasn't worthy to be in that set's presence.

The Transplants - Didn't get to see them myself, but judging by the fact that almost everyone I talked to said they sucked, I'm willing to bet they sucked. From what I hear Travis Barker was the only thing even slightly decent about the set and other than that, they blew.

Gogol Bordello - Mckell and I caught a little bit of this weird bands set as we were coming back from meeting The Offspring. Their a strange folk/polka/punk band from mother Russia and they sounded really cool. They had dancers that would dance and play percussion on a bunch of their songs and they were definitely a nice change of pace from all the strait punk you were hearing. They were cool, check 'em out.

Billy Idol - What the hell is it about this guy that turned him into an instant Warped Tour superstar? While sitting at our booth, I must have had 50 kids under the age of 18 come and tell me they were there to see Billy Idol more than anyone else. Billy Idol is before my time, and sure as shit theirs! I think it's funny how if some old bastard plays Warped Tour he's instantly cool with all the young kids. Either way I didn't see his set either, but I know he only played 4 songs and they kinda sucked. I guess that's what you get for liking Billy Idol.