Concert Review: It's wild, it's wicked, it's the Warped Tour
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Relient K performs during the 2008 Vans Warped Tour at the Post-Gazette Pavilion yesterday.
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Gabe Saporta, the decked-out day-glo singer from Cobra Starship, offered a reasonable assessment of where the Warped Tour is in 2008, saying that he'd been going since he was 10, and "I know what the bands on the Warped Tour are like and I know that we don't fit the mold."
"But," he added, "this is the most diverse Warped Tour yet ... no one's crying 'You're not punk enough.' "
On that note, he's about 90 percent right. No one, however, asked the crazies pressed against the barricades for Pennywise.
Although it may have been the most diverse tour yet, the crustiest punks on the bill played the most intense set of the day yesterday at the Post-Gazette Pavilion. (At least from what I saw. Remember, there are nearly 100 bands, and often five playing at once, so everyone has a different Warped experience.)
Pennywise has been around for 20 years and played countless Warped shows, so proper respect was due. As the Hermosa Beach, Calif., band -- looking more like roadies than rock stars -- raged through its 30 minutes, there were no less than 15 security personnel lined up in front of the stage playing catch with two or three flying bodies at a time.
Over the buzz-saw guitar of the mountainous Fletcher Dragge, Jim Lindberg shouted out rebel anthems like "My Own Country" and "[Expletive] Authority" as if it was his last stand. Actually, it was the band's last show on the tour, so it ended with a stage full of characters -- even the charming Japanese ska group, Oreskaband.
As for Cobra Starship, the New York City dance band's set was a blast and a colorful departure from the usual Warped grind. Even though the sun beat down mercilessly the entire day (where was the usual 5 p.m. cloudburst?), Saporta kept using the word "tonight," as if he were in a club, and that's what it was like, as the Starship bounced through high-energy tracks like "Smile for the Paparazzi" and "The Church of Hot Addiction."
The two biggest hypes of the day didn't deliver. Gym Class Heroes, despite being a hip-pop change of pace, fell flat, not kicking it hard enough to sit between Against Me! and Every Time I Die. And Katy "I Kissed a Girl" Perry seemed like a one-hit wonder out of her league.
The Academy Is ... won a fan vote to play an extra 10 minutes and delivered a tight set of pretty-boy emo-pop that makes you wonder why they aren't superstars. Forget being punk enough -- Relient K and Motion City Soundtrack were barely pop-punk enough for the occasion.
In the Pennywise department were the Street Dogs, led by former Dropkick Murphys singer Mike McColgan, and the sturdy LA band The Bronx, led by a paunchy, balding guy who packed a heavy hardcore punch. Florida's Against Me! lived up to its cred with a rousing set of smart and politically charged punk songs.
The general chaos of the Warped Tour was no more evident than in the crossfire between Angels & Airwaves and Gil Mantera's Party Dream. They started at the same time on stages that were a stone's throw away, while I wanted to see former Blink-182 singer Tom DeLonge's arena-rock set, I kept getting lured away by the sheer disco madness of the brothers from Youngstown, Ohio, gyrating half-naked in the sun.
It's the kind of sideshow that still makes Warped a must even if it's no longer wall-to-wall punk.
First Published July 30, 2008 12:43 am
