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User
Soundoffs 19
Album Ratings 292
Objectivity 70%
Last Active 09-11-15 3:23 am
Joined 05-17-11
Review Comments 279
| Warped Tour 2011
Last week I flew from Edmonton to Phoenix to go to the circus that Warped Tour has
evolved into. Although it's comprised 90% of shitty crap-core bands, there are a few
gems. The following is just a bunch of ramblings on my experience. Don't expect much
here, I'm just sitting at work with my iPad writing whatever comes to my head. Nothing
will be structured, I'm not proof reading this, and I'll probably repeat myself numerous
times. I recorded all of The Wonder Years, Moving Mountains, and The Dangerous
Summers sets. They can be viewed here if you wish: www.youtube.com/iiForbes
Enjoy. (You probably won't.) | | 1 | The Wonder Years
I have been a huge fan if these guys ever since I picked up The Upsides last year. I could tell
immediately that they weren't your every day pop-punk band. The Upsides was practically the
soundtrack to my grade 10 and 11 years, and then Suburbia came out. I loved it immediately, but my
love was taken to a whole new level after seeing them live and meetin them. I had the honor of
meeting them before they played their set. Soupy, being the vocalist and lyricist grabs most of the
attention, due to his relatable andvpersonal lyrics, and his extremely humble personality. Although all
the band members are awesome guys, I enjoyed talking to soupy the most. I was wearing a Touche
Amore shirt, so that got the conversation off to a good start. We talked about how good of an album
Parting the Sea is, and then talked about how warped tour has turned into a shit show comprised of kids
that dress like clowns and mosh to crap-core/electrometalcoreshit. So yeah, he was a really cool guy.
Then, I saw them perform their 8 song set. I've said it before, but I must really emphasize this. Best
experience of my life. The emotion that's put into their live performances, and the energy is unreal.
Everything about it was spot on, vocals, guitars, drums, non of it was sloppy. I was at the very front,
having the time of my life. Looking back on it the whole thing seems surreal. Soupy jumped into the
crowd at the end during Washington Square Park and shoved the mic in our faces, reminding me of a
local show at a hall or a basement. Not too many bands on warped tour do that, it just shows that they
haven't forgot that they used to play (and still do sometimes) play tiny shows with a bunch of
passionate kids there. At the end of the set as soupy was walking off, a big pack of kids, including me
went up to him and chatted for a sec, told him he played and awesome set, and so on. He actually
stayed there for a while, shook everyone's hand and so on. As a side note, most of the crowd was just
a bunch of kids like me, super passionate about the music and not just a bunch of 15 year old chicks
wanting to touch soupy's hand and scream "HE TOUCHED ME,". Now after writing this, I think I pretty
much only talked about Soupy, so it probably sounds like I'm just some gay fanboy obsessed with him.
But to be honest, the music and lyrics mean a lot to me, so meeting the person who wrote it all is an
amazing experience. I don't think any band has ever hit me this so hard. To many it probably seems
dumb, like a pop-punk band, really? But as I said, they are much more than just a pop-punk band to
me. I will never forget this for the rest of my life. | | 2 | Moving Mountains
So I just wrote my whole paragraph for Moving Mountains, and it just disappeared. Fuck this. Here I
go again: I was introduced to Moving Mountains last September by someone on /b/. Pneuma quickly
grew to be one of my favorite albums, Foreword was also unreal, and although Waves was giant step
towards mediocracy, it is still better than most releases these days. They played bright and early,
about 45 minutes after being let into the venue. There was 15 kids at the most watching them, but
Attack Attack was playing main stage at the same time, and after all this is Warped Tour, not
Lolapalooza. They opened up with Alleviate, a short, aggressive fast paced song. This got things
started off right. 4 songs in, and they still hadn't touched Pneuma or Foreword, I was pretty bummed.
They finally played a song off Pneuma, and it was Cover the Roots/Lower the Stems, one of my least
favorite songs off Pneuma. They closed with a shortened version of With Ones Heart in Ones Mouth.
I've always loved the opening riff I'm that song, so I really enjoyed it. The band were at their best for
The Cascade, or at least I enjoyed it the most, I guess simply because it was my favorite song they
played. Overall, it was a good performance, not great, but good. I guess it's pretty hard though when
you're only playing to a handful of kids. I wish they would have played more from Pneuma, but it's not
very practical to play 8 minute songs when you inky have 30 minutes, and you're a band trying to get
your name out there. Right after the set they had there signing, and me and ine other kid showed up,
which allowed me to actually talk to the guys....and get my Pneuma vinyl signed, lol. I asked Gregg
where he got the vocals from "Fourth" from, because I've been wanting to know forever, since there is
no trace of it on google. Apparently he stole it while he was bored one day from some .gov website
that has random voice clips on it. Kinda cool I thought. I then spoke with the drummer for a while,
forgive me for forgetting his name. I asked if he was enjoying the tour, and he said meh, kinda but not
really. He said it wasn't really the best audience for them, and they didn't really fit in, so they felt kind
of limited to what they played, which is exactly what I thought when they announced they were doing
warped tour. "You guys deserve a lot better kids to play to.". Anyways, then we talked about how
warped tour has evolved into just a bunch of scene kids, and terrible music for the most part. So
yeah...that was that. Not much else to say. | | 3 | The Dangerous Summer
Got into these guys a couple of summers ago with the release of Reach for the Sun. I stil absolutely
love that album to this day, it brings back some good memories, along with If You Could Only Keep Me
Alive. War Paint is pretty good, but it just doesn't hit me like the other two. They played at like 7:45,
which kind of sucked because everyone was getting ready for A Day to Remeber, so they had about 15
people watching them, like Mov Mou. Anyways, despite the lack of fans they put on a killer
performance. The two highlights were The Permanent Rain and Never Feel Alone, which they closed
with. Before playing The Permanent Rain, he said something about it being a "beautiful" song. I
thought that was kinda cool, because as you probably know if you're a fan, or have just listened to the
lyrics, it's about his mom who died. Never Feel Alone was awesome to see live, as it is my favorite
song by them. The ending was awesome when he sang/screamed the "never feel alone" part. Right
after they went to their tent, I was the only one there, they were all really nice dudes, (I've heard
people say they're dicks. They weren't at all.). Got my cd signed, took a picture, chatted all that fanboy
stuff. Overall, great performance, really nice guys, will definitely see them again if they ever roll
through my city, and will continue listening to Reach for the Sun a lot, god I love that album. | | 4 | The Menzingers
This will be a quick one. Saw they were playing my date of warped, and knew they had toured with
Touche and Title Fight, two of my favorite bands. I listened to Chamberlain Waits a lot the week before
I saw them. I really liked it. They put on an extremely energetic performance to once again just a
handful of kids. These guys are extremely talented and very humble, and deserve all the success that
comes their way. This is what punk should be these days. | |
DaveyBoy
08.12.11 | Good to hear you had a great day Forbes. Did you only see the 4 bands, or were there more who just didn't do anything for you? | iFghtffyrdmns
08.12.11 | definitely a tl;dr, but the menzingers are cool! | F0RBES
08.12.11 | I saw those 4, and then A Day To Remembers set, but mainly just because they were the headliners, and played very last. I caught part of Against Me's set, but I'll be seeing them on the 27th with blink, so I didn't mind missing it. I also saw The Ready Set while waiting for Moving Mountains, and it was god awful, as expected. Those were the 4 bands I went for though. I'm not a metal-core guy, but I enjoy some of ADTR's poppier stuff, although the only reason I am appealed to it is for the catchiness. and @iFghtffyrdmns, what do you mean "tl;dr", lol. | accompliceofmydeath
08.12.11 | Sounds like you had a great time. TWY are great, glad you enjoyed them. |
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