What happened to Warped Tour? What happened to the music scene? (UNFINISHED)
[author's note: i wrote this almost a month ago. some things are different. some things are the same. today in denver, we had a great show. a mosh pit broke out. denver loves us.]
Everything is different now. Warped Tour is no longer what it used to be. For every lead singer that screams fuck the system, we’re outside of the normal, we won’t follow like corporate lemmings, there are 20 thousand kids standing and chanting and following them right along.
The idea of not belonging to anything is to belong to something. It is inevitable. Everyone is part of something. This Warped music scene belongs to itself. Every kid looks the same. Every band sounds the same. But so does every other music scene. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a scene. The question is, is this a good thing, or a bad thing? Better yet, is it really a “thing” at all?
There is a place for everyone and everything. After 10 days of touring, it may be safe to say that this isn’t the place for a band like Down to Earth Approach –that being a small band from Western New York trying to make a name for itself with no gimmicks, no face paint or black lipstick, no double bass kicks or no screaming what so ever. On a daily basis I sit here under this tent watching literally thousands of kids walk by. Some will stop and ask if the stickers are free. I say yes “and so are the posters”. Some will take both while others with flip over the sticker, looking for something (what I’m not sure of) and upon not finding what ever they were looking for, set it back down and walk away. I watch hundreds of mohawks bounce past. By the end of the day most of them will be flopped over their face from sweat soaking through the hair gel that has so carefully kept the spikes in place. If they knew that in every town we’ve been in more and more people can be seen wearing the shirt that reads “Don’t Get Emo” complete with a frowning face under the international symbol for NO, I’m sure they’d have a heart attack. (Not to mention the Boondock Saint shirts everywhere, along with the black shirts with white text that read, “Fuck you, you fuckin’ fuck.”). But that’s just it. Every group of people has their own images they stick to. They attach themselves to what is comfortable to their own eyes. They form themselves according to the view of themselves with in the mirrors they stare into every day. One can’t leave that mirror until the proper comfort level has been reached. Some need that mirror. Some don’t. My comfort-self-image is that of a shirt that is quite with what is written on it, a pair of shorts and some sort of footwear that doesn’t require socks. I belong in Vermont, listening to music with slide guitars and really long bridges. But that’s me and I digress.
What about DTEA? Where do they belong? This tour is helping me figure out an answer to that ultimate question. The dozen fans that show up daily for them are sometimes a part of this Warped scene. Most of the time they’re not. I’m seeing more and more frat-boy types coming up to our table and giving praise. In Milwaukee, some college dudes came up to the table and told of how Another Intervention is their wake up album. In an almost Dave Matthews Band like fashion I’m starting to realize that perhaps the college circuit is the place for this band, the one place in America where wordofmouth travels the fastest, the place where everyone is connected via college intranets where everyone’s iTunes are avalible to share streaming with one another.
What does this all mean? What about today? I’m writing this under the merch tent which is situated on the outfield of a ballpark in Orlando, FL. I’m surrounded by thousands of kids, hundreds of tents and six stages. Under perfect timing, Less Than Jake has begun their 30-minute set on one of the main stages directly in front of me. Just the sounds of their horns are enough to snap these kids out of their washout hardcore blank stares. They’re running across the field to get the best possible spot to watch this band –a band that has been on this tour for years. A band that grabbed a hold of me one morning as I was waking up one day for one of those lost years of high school that was too long ago. My alarm was set to WBER and “History of a Boring Town” came on. Years later you could find me and Pete driving north from Purchase College to Poughkeepsie NY for a Less Than Jake show that I was all but exploding with sense to me. I’ve stood in the catering line with these guys. Their bass player watches DTEA play excitement to get to. Now, here I am semi-lost in my mid20’s on a tour that makes no these days. His dreadlocks are a lot smaller these days. Under perfect timing, the mass hysteria that is going on in front of the Less Than Jake set (Fat Mike from NOFX just came up onstage and cut off all of the saxophone player’s shoulder length hair) the Down to Earth Approach are now quietly taking the stage at the other ended of the concert grounds.
This brings me to the problem of Warped Tour two thousand and six. It’s too big. Way too big. With almost 75 bands playing daily the idea of small bands joining the tour and getting big is a hard one to achieve. The small bands stay small, while the big bands stay big.
Everything is different now. Warped Tour is no longer what it used to be. For every lead singer that screams fuck the system, we’re outside of the normal, we won’t follow like corporate lemmings, there are 20 thousand kids standing and chanting and following them right along.
The idea of not belonging to anything is to belong to something. It is inevitable. Everyone is part of something. This Warped music scene belongs to itself. Every kid looks the same. Every band sounds the same. But so does every other music scene. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a scene. The question is, is this a good thing, or a bad thing? Better yet, is it really a “thing” at all?
There is a place for everyone and everything. After 10 days of touring, it may be safe to say that this isn’t the place for a band like Down to Earth Approach –that being a small band from Western New York trying to make a name for itself with no gimmicks, no face paint or black lipstick, no double bass kicks or no screaming what so ever. On a daily basis I sit here under this tent watching literally thousands of kids walk by. Some will stop and ask if the stickers are free. I say yes “and so are the posters”. Some will take both while others with flip over the sticker, looking for something (what I’m not sure of) and upon not finding what ever they were looking for, set it back down and walk away. I watch hundreds of mohawks bounce past. By the end of the day most of them will be flopped over their face from sweat soaking through the hair gel that has so carefully kept the spikes in place. If they knew that in every town we’ve been in more and more people can be seen wearing the shirt that reads “Don’t Get Emo” complete with a frowning face under the international symbol for NO, I’m sure they’d have a heart attack. (Not to mention the Boondock Saint shirts everywhere, along with the black shirts with white text that read, “Fuck you, you fuckin’ fuck.”). But that’s just it. Every group of people has their own images they stick to. They attach themselves to what is comfortable to their own eyes. They form themselves according to the view of themselves with in the mirrors they stare into every day. One can’t leave that mirror until the proper comfort level has been reached. Some need that mirror. Some don’t. My comfort-self-image is that of a shirt that is quite with what is written on it, a pair of shorts and some sort of footwear that doesn’t require socks. I belong in Vermont, listening to music with slide guitars and really long bridges. But that’s me and I digress.
What about DTEA? Where do they belong? This tour is helping me figure out an answer to that ultimate question. The dozen fans that show up daily for them are sometimes a part of this Warped scene. Most of the time they’re not. I’m seeing more and more frat-boy types coming up to our table and giving praise. In Milwaukee, some college dudes came up to the table and told of how Another Intervention is their wake up album. In an almost Dave Matthews Band like fashion I’m starting to realize that perhaps the college circuit is the place for this band, the one place in America where wordofmouth travels the fastest, the place where everyone is connected via college intranets where everyone’s iTunes are avalible to share streaming with one another.
What does this all mean? What about today? I’m writing this under the merch tent which is situated on the outfield of a ballpark in Orlando, FL. I’m surrounded by thousands of kids, hundreds of tents and six stages. Under perfect timing, Less Than Jake has begun their 30-minute set on one of the main stages directly in front of me. Just the sounds of their horns are enough to snap these kids out of their washout hardcore blank stares. They’re running across the field to get the best possible spot to watch this band –a band that has been on this tour for years. A band that grabbed a hold of me one morning as I was waking up one day for one of those lost years of high school that was too long ago. My alarm was set to WBER and “History of a Boring Town” came on. Years later you could find me and Pete driving north from Purchase College to Poughkeepsie NY for a Less Than Jake show that I was all but exploding with sense to me. I’ve stood in the catering line with these guys. Their bass player watches DTEA play excitement to get to. Now, here I am semi-lost in my mid20’s on a tour that makes no these days. His dreadlocks are a lot smaller these days. Under perfect timing, the mass hysteria that is going on in front of the Less Than Jake set (Fat Mike from NOFX just came up onstage and cut off all of the saxophone player’s shoulder length hair) the Down to Earth Approach are now quietly taking the stage at the other ended of the concert grounds.
This brings me to the problem of Warped Tour two thousand and six. It’s too big. Way too big. With almost 75 bands playing daily the idea of small bands joining the tour and getting big is a hard one to achieve. The small bands stay small, while the big bands stay big.
posted by aaron at 10:56 PM
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